


holding hands while the walls come tumbling down

by ace_verity



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), DC Extended Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Read The Author Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ace_verity/pseuds/ace_verity
Summary: Dinah tries to catch a glimpse of the other tributes during the parade — the Careers are easy to spot, looking smug at the front of the pack. The youngest is from District Five, probably no older than Cass, but many of them are in the older range. Some of them look scared, others have an air of (likely forced) confidence — but one girl just looks angry, and Dinah’s gaze keeps returning to her. She’s wearing a gown so deeply purple it seems black, and her hair looks wild — like she’d been running her fingers through it after it was styled.She doesn’t wave at the balcony where the president sits; she doesn’t even look up when her name is called:Helena Bertinelli.---AHunger GamesAU.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 38
Kudos: 105





	1. (sad ending)

**Author's Note:**

> Thought of this at 5 am the other day and could not sleep until I wrote it. Special thanks to the anon who gave me the motivation to clean it up (adding several thousand words in the process, whoops) and post it and to Steph, Adina, and Kate for helping me figure out the ending.
> 
> I couldn't decide whether to give this a happy ending or a sad one, so here's the deal: Chapter 1 is the version with a sad ending. Chapter 2 will be the version that ends happily, and I'll have it up in a few days. (The first 2/3 of the story is the same; the last 1/3 is where they differ.) Feel free to choose whichever is what you're in the mood for, or read both if you want!
> 
> Title from ["Everybody Wants to Rule the World"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaVA6sgOpws) (Lorde).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: major character death, themes/depiction of death and violence, illness, angst

“What if I get picked?”

“Cass, it’s your first year.” Dinah reaches for a ribbon to tie off Cass’s braid. “Your name is in there once. The odds of that… You’ll be alright.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” Dinah does her best to sound confident, and she gives Cass a smile in the mirror. “There, all done. Don’t mess with the ribbon, it’ll come loose. Go show Renee.”

As if on cue, the kitchen door clatters shut. “We need to go!” Renee calls from the hall.

“Coming!” Dinah yanks on her boots, lacing them hastily, and nudges Cass out the door. 

“Dinah did my hair,” Cass tells Renee, turning to show her as Renee herds them both to the door. 

“Looks good, kid.” Renee mouths _thank you_ at Dinah and takes Cass’s hand, places a hand on Dinah’s back as they walk. She’s nervous, Dinah can tell, although Renee will never say it: it’s in the set of her mouth, the tension in her shoulders. 

They join the throng moving slowly toward the town square, everyone dressed in their nicest clothes, and even though Dinah sees Cass’s friends clustered together ahead of them, Cass doesn’t make a move to leave Renee’s side.

“Twelve to eighteen, to the front,” a Peacekeeper recites, sounding bored, and Renee tugs them both to the side. 

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, kiddo. Chin up,” she tells Cass, and hugs her tightly. “Stick with Dinah, you’ll be fine. I’ll see you soon.” When Renee turns to Dinah, she doesn’t say anything, just pulls her tight. “Last time,” she finally murmurs into Dinah’s ear, and pulls away like it’s the last thing she wants to do. “You’ll be fine,” she repeats, like she’s trying to convince herself, and gives Cass’s hand one last squeeze before she turns away to join the other adults.

“Just stay right here, alright?” Dinah tells Cass once they’re at the front of the crowd of anxious girls, where the youngest all stand together. “I’ll come get you when it’s done.”

“Okay,” Cass says, and she lifts her chin up and sets her shoulders back. Pride wells up in Dinah at the sight, and she gives Cass one last quick hug before forcing herself to continue to the back.

The ceremony drags, and Dinah can feel anxiety bubbling up inside her as she stares ahead at the two bowls onstage. The left one, the girls’ one, is the one she can’t tear her eyes away from. She tries to think how many times her name’s in there: six for each year she’s been eligible, plus God knows how many times she’s accepted extra rations. Renee had done her best; she hadn’t signed up to raise an extra kid, after all, but things got tight in the winter, and Dinah hadn’t had a choice. She’d bring the rations home, and Renee would look so goddamn sad that Dinah couldn’t stand to look at her. 

It wouldn’t be unexpected if her name was pulled. Simple math, simple probability. The irony of it — a Victor’s daughter, reaped at age eighteen, like a family curse. 

A ripple of tension runs through the crowd once it’s time for the names to be drawn, and despite the heat of the sun, a cold trickle of sweat runs down Dinah’s spine. She doesn’t recognize the boy whose name is called; he’s maybe fifteen, and he plods up to the stage, tears running down his face. There’s a heavy silence over the square, and then:

“Cassandra Cain.”

Dinah’s blood runs cold, and she feels as though the ground’s been ripped out from under her feet. She’s paralyzed, frozen on the spot, as she watches Cass step out into the open. The ribbon dangles limp, untied from its bow, from the tail of her braid, and she only makes it two steps toward the stage before Dinah’s moving, pushing her way through the throng.

“I volunteer!”

Dinah hurries toward the stage, catching Cass by the shoulders.

“Dinah —”

“I’ll be okay,” Dinah tells her. “Go to Renee, you’re safe.”

“But — Dinah!” Tears well up in Cass’s eyes.

 _“Go,_ Cass.” There’s a heavy hand on her back, the Peacekeepers forcing her away from Cass and towards the stage. Her legs are leaden, and the air shimmers in her vision, warped by heat. It feels unreal, as she shakes the boy’s hand and listens to the escort wishing them a happy Hunger Games, like it’s a sick dream and any minute she’ll wake.

\---

“You’re gonna win, Dinah,” Cass tells her. “You’re gonna kick ass.”

“Damn right,” Dinah says softly. “Don’t you forget it.” She bites the inside of her cheek to will the tears away, tasting blood in her mouth as Cass’s arms wrap around her ribs and squeeze hard enough to hurt. “Be good, kid.”

Renee’s standing next to Cass, and she seems diminished somehow — tired, and worn down. But she still gives Dinah a sad, crooked grin and pulls her down into a tight hug.

“Come back to us,” is all she says, and she taps her finger against the pendant hanging from Dinah’s necklace — a delicate gold canary, the one that had been her mother’s. 

Dinah can't bring herself to speak, just nods and feels her throat closing up, and then the Peacekeepers are pulling her away, and she has no choice but to follow.

\---

“What’s this?” The stylist — Harley Quinn, she’d introduced herself with a broad grin and vigorous handshake — taps on her necklace. “Some kinda bird?”

“Canary,” Dinah answers stiffly.

“Canary, huh? That might work.” Harley tilts her head. “Yellow’s definitely your color. That sound good for your opening look?”

“I don’t give a fuck.” Her voice shakes with restrained anger. These people, acting like it’s a goddamn fashion show, when in a month’s time she’ll probably be dead. 

“Aw, c’mon,” Harley says. “Looks are important, y’know? Like a suit of armor. I can make you feel real powerful.”

“Gee, thanks.” _Like that’ll help at all in the arena,_ Dinah thinks.

"You gotta make people love you," Harley continues. "Whatever it takes. Make 'em laugh, cry, doesn't matter. It's all about the show, the drama." She leans in like she's sharing a secret. "They love drama."

Harley pulls back and smiles brightly at her, but there’s a tinge of sadness to it, and Dinah wonders how many tributes she’s dressed up one day and watched die within the space of a week. She doesn’t look to be much older than Dinah, but it’s hard to tell under the garish layers of Capitol makeup and alterations. 

Dinah has to admit, though, that Harley’s work is impressive. In the space of a few hours, she has a gown prepared, a shimmering deep gold that fits perfectly, and makeup to match. By the time she turns Dinah to face the mirror, Dinah almost doesn’t recognize herself.

“You look gorgeous, doll,” Harley gushes. “You’ll _kill_ out there.”

Not a great choice of words, Dinah thinks.

She tries to catch a glimpse of the other tributes during the parade — the Careers are easy to spot, looking smug at the front of the pack. The youngest is from District Five, probably no older than Cass, but many of them are in the older range. Some of them look scared, others have an air of (likely forced) confidence — but one girl just looks angry, and Dinah’s gaze keeps returning to her. She’s wearing a gown so deeply purple it seems black, and her hair looks wild — like she’d been running her fingers through it after it was styled. 

She doesn’t wave at the balcony where the president sits; she doesn’t even look up when her name is called:

_Helena Bertinelli._

\---

Dinah catches Helena Bertinelli staring at her, sometimes. At meals, and during training, and in the hall outside their suites. If it were anyone else, she would have taken issue with it, would have demanded to know what the hell was their problem — but Helena’s gaze isn’t threatening, just vaguely interested, and Dinah can’t bring herself to feel angry. She hears whispers — that Helena’s brother had been a tribute in last year’s Games at barely twelve years old, that he’d been killed on the first day — and Dinah vaguely recalls the face of a boy with the same dark hair and dark eyes as Helena, flashed on the television screen at the end of a bloody day. That their parents died in a mysterious accident not long after.

That the Reaping had been rigged against her, rigged to ensure that the Bertinellis are no more, because there are rumors that they’d been working against the Capitol, somehow, and that’s the price to be paid for treason.

Dinah doesn’t know what’s true, but she sees the unconcealed rage in Helena’s eyes when she looks out at the lavish fixtures of the Capitol, and no matter what Helena’s story is — Dinah can relate, because she feels that rage too.

Training is brutal, leaving every muscle in her body stiff and aching, and yet she feels stronger than ever — undoubtedly thanks to the abundance of food to eat and relentless training regimen. She focuses on close-quarters combat, kicking and punching dummies until her knuckles bruise and her hips ache, but she sees Helena across the gym training with some kind of bow and arrow. She hits the target every time, dead center, ducking and rolling and dodging, and it’s mesmerizing. 

The assessment day comes all too quickly, and Dinah finds herself waiting with eleven other girls in a locker room adjoining the gym, awaiting her turn. The room empties gradually, and soon there’s only two of them — Dinah, and Helena. 

Helena’s pacing the length of the room, tension written in every muscle in her body, and Dinah’s torn between silence and _saying_ something — she’s lonely, desperately so, and yet she knows that only one person can win the Games. It could come down to just the two of them, in the end, and Dinah’s not letting anything get in the way of returning home to Cass and Renee. 

_“Helena Bertinelli,”_ a voice calls over the loudspeaker, and without even thinking about it, Dinah says, “Good luck.”

Helena looks at her like she’s trying to decide whether she’s being sincere, and finally gives a jerky nod before disappearing through the door. 

Dinah goes next, moving effortlessly through the martial arts routine she’s prepared, and she’s surprised to find the judges actually attentive this late at night. It goes well, she thinks, and by the time she steps out of the shower once she’s back in her room, the listings are flashing on the screen. 

Her eyes dart immediately to her own name, and she lets out a sigh of relief. She’d scored an eight — not perfect, but better than average, and hopefully enough to win her some support. 

Helena’s name is at the top of the list, and next to it — _3._

It's low, far too low for the talent that Helena had shown in training — maybe the Gamemakers were biased against her from the start, Dinah thinks, or maybe Helena didn't bother to try at all.

\---

Dinah’s wearing another gown, this time black with gold accents that catch the light, and waiting backstage. The dress is itchy, and sweat trickles down her spine, making her shudder. The other tributes are mostly gone, aside from Clark — the male tribute from District Twelve — standing a few yards away; the interviews occur in order of district, and Dinah’s will be last.

There’s a monitor mounted on the wall, and right now it’s displaying Helena Bertinelli herself, this time in a blood-red dress and a slash of red lipstick that looks like a wound against her pale skin. The interviewer is excessively cheerful, trying to draw out a smile, but Helena stares at him with blank coldness, her face expressionless as she gives bland, flat answers. 

The crowd is silent, and eventually the interviewer gives up.

Clark, Dinah thinks, does alright — he’s nervous, but polite, and handsome in a generic way in his crisp pressed suit. Before she knows it, the stagehands are nodding at her, shunting her onstage as her name is called.

Dinah plasters on her widest, sweetest smile, waving to the crowd and taking her seat across from the interviewer.

“Dinah Lance,” he says, dragging the syllables out and beaming at her. “Not often that we get a second-generation tribute.”

 _That’s because most tributes end up dead,_ she thinks bitterly. “I suppose not,” she says instead, all wide eyes and charm.

“And a volunteer, no less.” He nods as if he’s impressed. “Tell me, were you hoping to continue your mother’s legacy?”

 _Stupid,_ Dinah thinks. As if her mother had ever spoken of the Games as anything more than a brutal slaughter, a political tool, an abomination. 

“I was just looking out for my sister,” Dinah explains.

“Your sister — adopted, yes? Cassandra?”

“My sister Cass, that’s right.”

“Lovely, lovely.” His face molds into a mask of sympathy. “So sweet of you. Now, your mother — she was a skilled fighter, you know.”

“Yes, of course.”

“But she had other talents as well.” He raises his eyebrows at her, and when Dinah doesn’t respond, he prompts, “Her lovely voice. I wonder, did she pass that on to you?”

“Well, I’m not quite as talented,” Dinah replies. “But yes, I love to sing.”

“We’d love to hear,” he says. “Wouldn’t we?”

The crowd cheers in response, and Dinah catches a glimpse of Harley in the front row, giving her a thumbs-up and a wide smile, then swallows down nausea. It feels wrong, dirty, and yet — it could help her, in the long run.

So she sings. Not long, just a few bars of an old lullaby she remembers from her childhood, but the crowd erupts when she finishes, and the interviewer nods, his eyes misted over.

 _Fake,_ Dinah thinks. All a facade. But she smiles and accepts the praise, and when she walks offstage to applause she bites her lip against the tide of anger welling inside her.

\---

“You all ready?” Harley asks cheerfully, straightening Dinah’s collar. She’s sweating in the outfit they’d given her — warm clothes, which means a cold climate, most likely. She’s used to the cold, thanks to the harsh winters of District Twelve, but it means that food will be harder to come by and exposure is a risk. 

“I guess,” Dinah answers, trying not to think about Cass and Renee sitting in front of the crappy TV at home, watching with bated breath to see if Dinah’s going to die in the cornucopia bloodbath. 

“You’ll be great, Canary! I’m rootin’ for ya!” 

Then Harley leans in close, pulling her into a hug but whispering quickly in her ear, “Don’t go for the cornucopia, you hear? That’s a great way to get killed. Run the other way. First thing to do is find water, alright? Get water, then shelter and food. Keep a low profile, play the long game, don’t attract attention. But remember — make ‘em root for you. They love the drama. Got it?” She pulls away, smiling as though she hadn’t said anything, and gives Dinah a pat on the back. “See you later, kid! Take care of yourself!”

“Harley…” Dinah swallows. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing, doll!”

And then the platform under Dinah’s feet is rising up, and Harley disappears from sight as the arena appears around her.

She’s facing the cornucopia, which looms huge and gray fifty yards away, and the other tributes are positioned around it in a circle. The air is biting cold, stinging Dinah’s face, and there’s a faint dusting of snow on the ground. They’re in a clearing surrounded by woods, and Dinah remembers Harley’s words: _Run the other way. First thing to do is find water._

The countdown sounding in the air around them, spoken by a disembodied voice, ticks ever closer to zero. Dinah spots the Careers across the circle from her, and then her gaze lands on Helena, who looks pale and fiercely determined from her position just a few tributes down. 

_Three. Two. One._

The world explodes into movement as the other tributes head for the cornucopia, and Dinah starts running as fast as her feet can carry her toward the woods. She hears screams from behind her but doesn’t look back, not until she’s deep into a thicket of trees. 

The screams fade, and there’s only silence.

\---

That night, twelve faces flash in the sky. Two of the Careers are dead. The District Three girl, the District Five boy and both from District Six — dead. District Seven and District Eight are gone, all four tributes. The boy from District Eleven — Helena’s district. Clark, her fellow tribute from Twelve, is dead, and though Dinah hadn’t known him well, she thinks of his mother, his cousins, and feels an ache of sadness inside her.

Twelve down, she thinks grimly. Eleven to go.

But she’s alive, with a meager bit of foraged food and shelter in a hollow under a tree, and that’s as much as she can hope for, at least for tonight.

\---

Dinah wakes up the next morning to a new layer of snow on the ground and a gnawing hunger in the pit of her stomach. The creek running a few yards from her shelter has frozen over, and she stomps on it to break the ice. The water does nothing for her hunger, only coats her insides with ice, and she knows she needs more food than just the berries she’d found the night before.

So she returns to the cornucopia. 

She moves slowly, cautiously, wincing at every broken branch and crunch of snow under her boots. It’s hard to judge the passage of time, but it feels like an eternity by the time she reaches the clearing. Dinah looks around, but silence lies like a blanket over the arena, and so she darts out into the open air. 

It looks like the risk of returning has paid off — there are still supplies scattered around, and she grabs an empty rucksack and starts filling it with granola bars, water bottles, a first aid kit, even a short pocketknife. Dinah’s almost giddy with excitement, and she tears into one of the granola bars right then and there, unable to resist. For the first time, she thinks she actually has a decent shot at surviving this — if she can just wait out everyone else, like Harley had said —

“Whatcha got there?”

It’s the pack of Careers, four of them now. They all have that same smug smile that pisses her off on sight, and she wants nothing more than to wipe it off their faces.

But she’s not stupid, because they’ve got her outnumbered four to one, and those odds won’t end well.

There’s no way in hell that Dinah’s about to give up her findings, so she turns on her heel and starts running, as fast as she can, away from them. The cold air burns in her throat and chest, and she can almost feel them just inches away, but if she can get to the woods — 

Her foot catches on a tree root, and she goes flying. They’re on top of her before she can push herself upright, and one of them flicks out a knife and grins. 

Like he _enjoys_ this.

Dinah’s distantly aware of a growing ache in her ankle, like she’s twisted it or worse, but she’s not about to let this psycho cut her open in sight of the entire goddamn country, so she rears back and headbutts him in the face, then kicks out at the legs of one of the girls. 

“Oh, you’re gonna fight?” the second boy says, and she manages to knock him aside with an elbow to the face when she sees a flash of metal — the knife, still grasped in the hand of the boy she’d given a bloody nose.

She lashes out, desperation making her movements frantic, but Dinah’s still weak from hunger, and it isn’t hard for them to pin her down against the frozen ground.

“Gonna make you pay, you bitch,” the kid with the knife sneers, and drives it down into her side.

Her vision goes white with pain, and her only coherent thought is — _I couldn’t even make it one day._

She thinks of Cass and Renee, no doubt watching at home, and wants to be sick.

The knife flashes in her vision again; it’s coated with her blood, now, and the kid holds it up for her to see.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he says softly, and the other Careers standing over her are laughing, laughing, choking —

Choking.

The knife hits the ground beside her head, blood staining the snow, and the kid sags to the side. There’s something sticking out of his neck, and Dinah squints to see it — an arrow, maybe?

“We need to go,” someone says above her, sounding like they’re speaking from a great distance, and then Dinah feels herself being hauled upright. Her side is on fire, and blackness is creeping in at the edges of her vision.

“Stay with me, Dinah.”

“Can’t,” Dinah manages, and then the world fades to darkness.

\---

She dreams strange, muddled dreams — one minute she’s home with Renee and Cass, and then she’s with her mother, and then she’s in the Capitol at a feast, but on the table there’s nothing but spilled blood all over the white cloth.

Dinah catches snippets of reality, warped and fuzzy though it is — stinging pain in her side, cool water in her mouth, mouthfuls of food eaten before she drifts back into dreams.

And through it all, a lanky, dark-haired girl, hovering at her side.

When Dinah finally wakes, fully this time, the realization that she isn’t alone is what sends her bolting upright, much to her regret a moment later as her side aches in protest.

“Whoa, hey.” A pair of hands land on her shoulders. “Calm down. You’re alright.”

The world comes into focus: she’s in a cave of some sort, quiet and cold, and the person holding her by the shoulders, looking at her intently — it’s Helena. 

Dinah pulls back on instinct, and Helena seems to remember herself, tucks her hands close to her chest and frowns at her.

“You saved my life,” Dinah says stupidly. “Why did you do that?”

Helena looks awkward. “I wasn’t going to — to leave you to die. Here, drink some water.”

Dinah drinks from the bottle Helena hands her; it could be poisoned, sure, but Helena had had plenty of chances to kill her already, and besides, her throat is desert-dry.

“You know that’s the whole point, right?” Dinah asks once she’s drunk her fill. “Leaving people to die? That’s how you win.”

“I _know_ that,” Helena says, irritated now. “I’m not fucking stupid. You’d rather I left you to bleed out on top of your granola bars?”

“No.” Dinah’s voice softens as she says, “I just — thanks. You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah.” And then Helena goes quiet.

“How long have I been out?” Dinah asks once the silence stretches longer than strictly comfortable.

“Two days,” Helena answers.

“Two —” Dinah gapes at her. “Two _days?”_

Helena shrugs, like it’s nothing. “Yeah.”

“How many are left? Besides us?”

Helena's brow furrows in thought. “Five. The four Careers are dead now,” and when she says it, a little pleased grin comes across her face and is gone again, “and then the District Three boy died yesterday too. I don’t know how.”

“Holy shit,” Dinah mutters, and then realizes — she hasn’t seen her wound, yet. She tugs at her coat, unzipping it, then pulls at the hem of the thermal shirt to reveal a makeshift bandage covering most of her side.

“I did my best,” Helena says, nodding at the bandage. “Stitched it up. The first aid kit you found probably saved your life.”

Dinah runs a finger along the bandage — it’s made of the same thermal material as her shirt and long underwear. “Where’d you get this?”

“Part of my sleeve.”

“Your sleeve? It’s fucking cold out there, and you used your clothes?”

“It was just a little bit!” Helena’s face is going red, out of frustration or embarrassment, Dinah doesn’t know.

“You could freeze out there ‘cause of me,” Dinah says, and that makes Helena smirk.

“But that’s how you win,” she parrots, eyes gleaming with mirth, and Dinah huffs irritably.

“Yeah, whatever.” Dinah shifts, trying to stand, and Helena’s on her feet immediately, bracing her with a hand on her arm.

“Careful, your ankle’s —”

“Fucked,” Dinah finishes, wincing as she shifts her weight. “Goddamnit.”

“Not broken,” Helena informs her. “Probably sprained. I tried to splint it, but you really shouldn’t be walking. What do you need?”

“Bathroom,” Dinah says dryly. “I can manage.”

“Oh. Right.” Helena blushes again, which makes no sense, given that she’s spent two days looking after Dinah already.

When Dinah hobbles back into the little cave, Helena’s cutting into a can of what looks like soup. There’s already a water bottle set out, and a granola bar beside that, like they’re actually eating at a table and not huddled in this cold, damp cave. 

“It’s not much,” Helena says apologetically, as if this isn’t practically a feast to Dinah. “I’ll go hunting tomorrow.”

“Hunting?” Dinah raises her eyebrows. “With your bow and arrow, you mean?”

“Crossbow,” Helena corrects. “Sure, rabbits and squirrels and stuff. Better than cold soup.”

Dinah can’t argue with that.

\---

“Why did you save me?” Dinah asks later, when it’s pitch-black out, and the only light inside the cave is coming from a weak flashlight that Helena had taken off the Careers. She sees Helena start to answer like she had earlier, and Dinah interrupts, “Really. Why do you care?”

Helena’s silent, the light playing across her pale features. She’d seemed angular and hard, all muscle and ferocity, back in the Capitol, but here she looks — young. Her cheeks still have a touch of youthful softness, and her eyes have lost their sheen of coldness.

“You volunteered for her,” she finally says. 

It takes a moment to click, but — “You mean Cass?”

Helena nods.

“Yeah, she’s only — she’s just twelve. I wasn’t gonna let her…” Dinah swallows hard and wills the thoughts away. “Anyway.”

“That was good,” Helena says softly. “You deserve to win.”

Her words fall heavy between them, another reminder that in the end, only one of them is allowed to make it out. “So do you,” Dinah replies, but the words feel weak, inadequate. 

Helena just shrugs, and the rage that had set her features during the opening parade flickers under the surface. “You have a family, don’t you?”

Dinah nods warily. “Cass, she’s like a little sister. My mom’s gone, but Renee took me in.” God, she misses them so bad it physically pains her. “What about you?” She regrets the question almost instantly, recalling the whispered rumors back in the Capitol, but it's too late to take it back.

Helena shakes her head slowly. “Everyone’s gone.”

“I’m sorry.” It isn’t enough, so Dinah moves a bit closer, presses against Helena, side-to-side, and that’s how the morning finds them.

\---

Nobody had died that day, and the thought seems to unsettle Helena.

“No drama,” she says darkly. “That means they’ll stir something up.”

Sure enough, she’s limping and shivering as she returns to the cave that evening bearing the cooked meat of two rabbits — safer to build a fire out there than close to their shelter, she’d explained.

“Avalanche,” she says flatly, when Dinah sees her uneven gait, her wet clothes, the scratches covering her face. “Went right down into a fucking stream. Almost got brained by a log, and nearly broke my shin — see?”

She peels back her pants and long underwear from the ankle up, revealing an ugly dark bruise right on the front of her shin. 

But Helena still smiles proudly when she unpacks the rabbit meat, portioning it between them, and she looks pleased with herself when Dinah makes a noise of contentment at the taste of it. 

There’s only one face in the memorial that evening, that of the death of the boy from District Nine — he had been young too, and Helena flinches when she sees the picture in the sky.

“Did you know him?” Dinah asks, but Helena shakes her head and says nothing more.

\---

"His name was Pino," Helena says quietly, startling Dinah — she'd thought Helena was sleeping already.

"Who?"

"My brother." Helena isn't looking at her; her gaze is fixed on the cave ceiling, eyes faraway. "He was a tribute last year. His twelfth birthday was just a week before."

Dinah wants to offer condolences, but she knows they'll just fall flat, and so she stays silent, letting Helena continue.

"I tried to volunteer," Helena adds after a moment, and her mouth twists in a mirthless smile. "They wouldn't let me. Against the rules."

Dinah remembers that desperation, hearing Cass's name — except it must have been multiplied a hundredfold for Helena, who hadn't been able to do anything about it.

She reaches out blindly, her hand finding Helena's in the dark and holding tight.

"I'm sorry," she says, wishing there was more she could say, and Helena just gives her hand a quick squeeze and doesn't say a word — doesn't need to.

\---

Dinah’s able to forage near the cave’s entrance the next day, feeling overall rejuvenated, but though Helena’s up and moving the next day like the avalanche never happened, Dinah’s concerned — not about her bruised leg, but about the other mishap Helena had mentioned: _Went right down into a fucking stream._ Helena’s coughing a bit, and moving slower than normal, and Dinah’s mind jumps automatically to the worst case scenario — a respiratory infection, or pneumonia. They don’t have antibiotics to handle that. 

“You feeling alright?” Dinah asks over dinner — squirrel, this time, and a can of soup.

“I’ll be fine,” Helena replies, and Dinah lets it go, even though Helena looks more drawn than normal in the dim light.

\---

“What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get out?”

Helena gives her a look, but plays along. “Eat. Duh.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Dinah bumps her, shoulder to shoulder. “Eat what?”

“I dunno, tacos. Spaghetti. Ice cream and cake.”

“Hell of a combination.”

“Yeah, well, I’m really hungry,” Helena says dryly. “What about you?”

“What would I eat? Not canned soup, that’s for sure.”

“What will you do?” Helena asks, voice soft.

“God, I don’t know.” _Hug Cass and Renee,_ is her first answer, but it would be a dick move for her to rub in the fact that she still has people waiting back home. “Take a long bath, probably.” She feels disgusting, her skin coated in grime and sweat, but there’s no way to clean herself without risking exposure.

Helena sighs. “That sounds amazing.”

For a moment, there’s silence, broken only by the quiet sound of their breathing. Then Helena says, “Your mom was a Victor, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah.” Dinah feels Helena shiver beside her. “Almost thirty years ago, now.”

“How’d she win?”

Dinah shrugs. “She never really talked about it.” Dinah had known not to bring it up, had known that her mother’s eyes would go distant and haunted if she did. “I know she had sponsors, though.”

“How’d she get sponsors?”

“Singing, I think,” Dinah answers, thinking back to her interview back in the Capitol. “People liked that. She was talented.”

“You are, too,” Helena points out. “I heard your interview. You have a nice voice.”

The sincerity in Helena’s voice fills Dinah with warmth despite the chill of the air. “Thanks.”

“You could do that.”

“Do what?”

“Get sponsors, I bet. Everyone likes you.”

Dinah shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s true.” Helena says it matter-of-factly. “You have a nice voice, and they like that you’re second-generation. Rare, you know? And you’re pretty, too.”

“You don’t look too bad yourself, H.”

Even in the dimness of the cave, Dinah can tell that Helena’s blushing, dropping her gaze to the floor. “I don’t know. They definitely don’t like me.”

“That’s…” Dinah wants to deny it, but she can’t, and Helena gives her a dubious look.

“It’s true.” She grins a little bit, not the least bit ashamed. “I didn’t try to be likable, and I’m not about to start.”

“Well, I like you.” The words spill out before she can think better of them — but they’re true.

“I like you too, Dinah.” 

And there it is again, that sudden warmth that makes Dinah’s breath catch in her chest. For a long moment, neither of them speak, the silence dragging out until Dinah thinks that Helena’s fallen asleep, but then she speaks up again.

“I’m glad I have you.” Helena’s words are quiet, as if she’s speaking to herself.

“Me too,” Dinah replies. “We’re a good team.”

Helena hums agreeably, shifting closer, and though her breathing soon evens out as she drifts off to sleep, Dinah finds herself awake. She glances over at Helena’s face, peaceful and free of the hard lines of worry that etch across her features in the daytime, and wonders how she could bear to win, if it means seeing Helena die. Helena, who saved her life, who makes her smile, who doesn’t give a fuck about playing the Capitol’s games.

Dinah thinks that it wouldn’t be much of a victory at all, if she has to live with that.

\---

Dinah’s awakened by the sound of a deep, raspy cough, and she shakes off the last remnants of sleep immediately, squinting to make out the outline of Helena doubled over at the mouth of the cave.

“Hey, you okay?” Dinah scrambles to her feet, but Helena straightens up.

“Fine.” Her voice is gravelly, but before Dinah can call bullshit, Helena points to the sky outside. “I think it might snow today.”

Dinah takes a closer look and feels her heart sink. Clouds are gathering above them, thick and woolly gray, and the air tastes sharp in the unquantifiable way that always signals snow back home. “It’s gonna be bad,” she says, not knowing how, exactly, she’s so sure of that. “We have enough food?”

“Depends,” Helena answers, looking at the pile of supplies in the corner. There are three cans of soup and four granola bars, plus half a dozen water bottles. “For a day, sure. Water’s not a problem when there’s snow on the ground. Two, three days…” She trails off, but she doesn’t need to continue. 

“You up to go hunt?” Dinah asks, and immediately wishes she hadn’t — because Helena straightens up and nods, clearly determined. 

“I was gonna go out now, see if I can get something before the storm hits.”

“I’m coming with,” Dinah tells her and Helena instantly balks.

“It’ll be too loud with two people — and we can’t leave the shelter alone, what if —”

“I’m not letting you go out alone.” Dinah’s tone brooks no argument. “We’ll stay close so I can keep an eye on things.”

“Fine.”

\---

In the end, it’s a pointless venture. By the time Helena manages to kill and skin a rabbit, the snow has already begun to fall in large, clumped flakes. It would be impossible to light a fire, so Helena stows the rabbit in a snowbank just outside in the hopes that it will freeze and keep until the storm abates, and the two of them trudge back to the cave, Dinah with a tiny gathering of foraged berries parceled in her coat pocket. Helena stumbles twice on the short walk, and by the time they’re back inside, her breathing is labored and ragged. 

“You need to rest,” Dinah tells her. “I’ll get us something to eat.”

What unsettles her the most is that Helena complies without argument — just sinks down onto the ground and closes her eyes. 

The storm is in full force, now, snow swirling past the entrance of the cave and gathering outside. Dinah hadn’t even considered what might happen if it piles so high that the entrance is blocked — they could suffocate in here, trapped and helpless. 

It’s a risk to open a can of soup when the storm has barely started, but they need their strength, so Dinah wrenches the lid off with the pocketknife and divides it in uneven halves, pouring the slightly larger helping into an empty can and handing it to Helena.

“Go on, eat up,” she tells her, and Helena sips at it obligingly. She gives up halfway through, pushing it away with a look of displeasure, and Dinah bites her lip and reaches across to feel Helena’s forehead. 

It’s no wonder she’s not hungry — she’s burning up.

“You’re really warm, Helena,” Dinah says, willing the words past the lump in her throat. “You’ve got a fever.”

“No, I’m cold.” Helena shivers as if to prove her point. “I’m gonna lie down. You can finish my soup.” She curls against the wall, closing her eyes tightly, and Dinah feels panic rise within her — _she doesn’t know what to do._ At home, when Cass is sick, Renee usually makes broth and simple foods, puts a cool cloth on her forehead to keep her temperature down. But Dinah can’t do any of that. She rummages frantically through the first aid kit, but all she can find is a few packets of aspirin. She scoops snow into the empty soup cans and places them inside, in the hope that the snow will melt. She clears away the accumulated snow from the entrance to the cave so that they can breathe, and then —

She doesn’t know what to do.

\---

It’s hard to tell the difference between night and day, with the storm raging outside, but the sound of the nightly memorial at least tells Dinah that the day is at its end. Another two deaths today, though Dinah hadn't dared venture out to see who they were, and that leaves just the two of them and one other tribute somewhere in the arena. Helena had only woken up a few times, and each time Dinah had gotten her to drink, to eat a bit, to swallow some crushed aspirin — but each time, she’d seemed weaker, no matter how much she slept.

The wind howls outside as Dinah settles down beside Helena. Helena, though asleep, burrows instinctively toward her warmth; her face is pale apart from a splotch of red high on each cheekbone, and lying next to her is like sleeping by a furnace. 

When Dinah wakes to gray light, the entrance of the cave is half-covered by snow, and it’s still coming down — though hopefully not as heavily.

She extracts herself from Helena’s grasp and clears away as much snow as she can. By the time she comes back in, Helena hasn’t stirred, and for a moment Dinah’s heart seems to stop in her chest

Then Helena coughs weakly and blinks, and Dinah lets out a breath of relief.

“Let’s get you some water,” she says in a voice of false cheer.

The day continues in that way: Helena wakes and manages a bit of food and water, Helena goes back to sleep, Dinah frets. Rinse and repeat. She thinks Helena’s delirious, or nearly so; she twists and whimpers pitifully in her sleep, once flailing so hard that she nearly smacks Dinah across the chin. It helps, Dinah discovers, to hum — quietly, so as not to attract attention. She keeps it up for as long as she can, combing her fingers through Helena's hair as she recalls folk songs and lullabies from her childhood and gives voice to them, letting the melody carry in the quiet still space. 

Without Helena to talk to, Dinah's alone with her thoughts. She thinks about Cass and Renee back home, wonders what they're doing — eating together, or sleeping, or sitting in front of the television unable to tear their gaze away. Dinah's closer to making it out alive than she'd thought possible, and she hasn't even had to kill anyone to get here. Harley's advice had been sound, she supposes.

A few more days. Surely they can make it a few more days, and maybe the other tribute will die of exposure or as the result of some sick twist cooked up by the Gamemakers. And then it'll be just the two of them, Dinah and Helena, and —

Then what? She doesn't want Helena to die for her, doesn't want her to die at all. Dinah glances over at Helena's form, curled against the cold, and for a moment there's a dark whisper in her mind — that maybe, it's a mercy that Helena's sick, so that Dinah won't be to blame when she's the last one standing. Illness is impartial, unfeeling, far more so than a blade or a crossbow bolt. No blood on her hands if Helena dies, and she could go home again and leave the arena behind like a distant dream.

It would be logical, in a cruel way. The best outcome. What's more, Helena wouldn't blame her. It's what she would want, for Dinah to live even at the cost of Helena's own life.

And Dinah feels sick at the thought, forces it from her mind and swallows down the bitter guilt that rises in her throat for the fact that she'd even considered it. She won't give in this easily, and won't let Helena give in either.

Dinah goes outside, just once, and stares at the sky, praying for a silver parachute to drift down amid the falling snow, bearing medicine or a cool cloth or _anything_ at this point. 

But nothing comes.

\---

They’re nearly out of food, just one can of soup remaining between them, when Dinah hears something outside — the snap of a branch, and footsteps coming closer. Helena tries to sit up, and Dinah steadies her and reaches for the pocketknife they’ve been using as a can opener. The crossbow is beside it, but Dinah’s never used one before, so she presses it into Helena’s grasp.

“Wait here,” she whispers, but as soon as she gets to her feet, a figure appears in the entrance of the cave — the last tribute, a boy their age. He’s skin and bones, practically, and there’s a gash running down his forehead and cheek that’s crusted over with dried blood. There’s a light of desperation in his eyes, and he flings himself forward, a blade in hand; Dinah just barely manages to lunge forward, blocking him from attacking Helena. 

The cave is too small for a fight like this. Dinah lands enough solid blows to stun him, sending him reeling back, but he fights back even harder, clipping her with an elbow to the mouth. She can feel her lip split with the impact, and the bitter taste of blood fills her mouth. Dinah lashes out almost blindly, and she hears him curse as he goes down hard — but he falls down not even a foot away from Helena, and the knife is still in his hand, too close for comfort —

As if she’s using every last bit of her strength, Helena strikes out, driving the sharp end of her weapon forward. The crossbow clatters to the stone floor, but the damage is done — he falls back, hands pressed against his chest, and lets out a low groan of pain. 

The adrenaline is draining from her system, leaving Dinah shaking and unsteady, but she manages to grab him under the arms and haul him out into the snow. He’s alive, breathing shallowly, and Dinah feels her gut twist with nausea at the sight of scarlet against the pure white blanketing the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and his eyes meet hers — the desperation is ebbing away, and he no longer looks crazed or vicious, just impossibly young.

And then they flutter shut, and the movements of his chest still. 

Dinah manages to stumble away, just a few feet from the body, before she drops to her knees and heaves up the little food she’s eaten that day. Tears freeze on her face, and the sour taste in her mouth mixes with the lingering copper tang of blood. 

It’s just the two of them, now.

\---

Dinah doesn’t say a word when she steps back into their shelter, busying herself with menial tasks — gathering snow to melt into water, tidying the supplies knocked aside in the fight — but all the while, she can feel Helena’s eyes on her. The silence stretches, tense and heavy, until — 

“Dinah.”

“No.” Dinah knows what she’s going to say, can’t bring herself to look at her.

“You can go home now,” Helena says softly. “You can see them. Cass and Renee.”

“No, you know what? We’re both getting out of this. I’ll find a way.”

“That’s not possible.” Helena’s as stubborn as ever. “Only one Victor, remember?”

“I don’t give a fuck. I’m not leaving you, dumbass.”

“You have to.”

“Bullshit. I don’t have to do anything.”

“You have to go home,” Helena tells her. Her eyes are dark, darker than the darkest shadows of this goddamn cave, and once Dinah meets her gaze she can’t look away. “They’re waiting for you. Nobody’s waiting for me. My parents, my brother, they're dead.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s alright, for you to —”

Dinah can’t say it — _for you to_ _die._

“I want you to be happy.”

“How the hell can I?” Dinah snaps. “How would I be able to live with this?”

“I know you,” Helena says simply. “You’re strong. You have a family, people who love you. You can’t leave them. I won't let you.”

Dinah’s throat closes up; she thinks about Cass, saying _You’re gonna win_ with all the confidence in the world, and Renee, telling her _Come back to us._ Her hand moves unconsciously to the pendant on her neck, still there despite everything, and she runs a careful finger across the delicate gold. 

“That’s pretty,” Helena murmurs. She’s slipping away again, the fight and their conversation having clearly exhausted her, and Dinah goes to her side and sinks down next to her. Helena reaches up, touching the canary with a gentleness that contradicts the ferocity she’d shown moments ago in the struggle for their lives. 

“It was my mother’s,” Dinah tells her. “For good luck.”

“She’d want you to live.” Helena’s words catch in her throat, and she coughs weakly, taking a breath that shudders in her lungs. “Pretty,” she says again, but she’s not looking at the necklace anymore but rather at Dinah’s face, and her fingers ghost against Dinah’s neck, trailing feverish heat across the skin. Despite everything, her eyes are impossibly clear and calm. 

“Helena…” Dinah trails off, at a loss for words.

“I saw you in the Capitol and I couldn’t look away,” Helena says quietly. “I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”

“You need to rest,” Dinah tells her, blinking away tears. “In the morning, we can —”

Helena shakes her head. “Dinah.”

“Just hold on longer, we can figure something out —” As she says it, she knows that it’s impossible, that there’s no way they’re getting out of this. Even if Helena’s fever breaks, the Gamemakers won’t stop until there’s only one of them remaining. Even if they make it through the night, there’s no telling what horrors will come in the morning. 

But still Dinah pleads, “Just hold on, Helena. Try for me.”

Helena doesn’t respond to that, just shivers and shifts to lie down, exhaling as Dinah settles down next to her. “What’s the first thing we’ll do when we get out?”

 _We._ Dinah doesn’t know if Helena says it for her own benefit or for Dinah’s, but either way she takes a breath and makes a noise like she’s thinking. “I’ll take you back home,” she says. “And then we can sleep in a real bed, and eat real food, not this canned bullshit.” Dinah watches the smile that flickers across Helena’s face, holds onto it, memorizes it. “It’ll be warm and sunny, and we can walk in the woods — there’s a pond that I take Cass to sometimes, so we can swim there and listen to the birds.”

“Would they like me? Your family?”

“They’d love you.” Dinah’s never been so certain of anything. “Just like I do.”

And Helena smiles so wide and bright that it almost erases the gauntness of her cheeks, the circles under her eyes. Dinah’s breath catches in her throat at the sight of it — _beautiful,_ Dinah thinks. In spite of everything, the violence and bloodshed around them, they’ve found something all their own, something beautiful. 

Without thinking, she leans in. Helena’s lips are dry, chapped and feverish against her own; the kiss is soft, chaste, gentle, and Dinah draws away.

“Was that for them?” Helena asks. _Them_ — the audience. The Capitol, watching their every move, savoring the _drama_ of it all.

“No,” Dinah reassures her. “Not at all.”

“Good. I hate them. I hope they hate themselves.” For a moment, the rage that Dinah had seen on her face back in the Capitol is back, but Dinah takes her hand and kisses her fingertips, and the anger fades away. 

“I won’t let them forget,” Dinah promises. “Never. I’ll never forget you.”

She couldn’t, Dinah knows, not even if she tried. 

Helena nods, just the tiniest movement, and doesn’t look away from Dinah until her eyes finally drift shut as she gives in to exhaustion. Dinah tries to commit every detail of Helena’s face to memory, unwilling to forget a single thing, and when she finally falls asleep, her arm is curled over Helena’s side, holding her close.

\---

It’s the sound that wakes her — the sound of Helena’s breathing rattling in her lungs, strained and laborious, and somehow, Dinah _knows_ —

They’re out of time.

The cave is filled with the dim grayness of pre-dawn, just before sunrise, and Helena’s face is ashen and contorted with pain as she struggles to pull air into damaged lungs.

Dinah sits up, kneels over her, taking Helena’s face in her palms and stroking the twisted curls of hair back behind Helena’s ears. 

“Wake up, Helena.” Her voice is desperate, pleading. “Look at me. It’s okay, I’m right here, Helena, please, just —”

And then Helena’s hand is on her face; it tangles in her necklace, gold against the pale white of her skin, and her eyes open for just a moment. Helena looks up at her, her lips move just a bit like she's trying to speak and she’s still alive, and if she could just _hold on_ —

“I’m sorry,” Dinah chokes out, sorry for a million things but mostly that this is how it ends, in the dim and cold, that the bright unspoken love between them is fading into nothing but the memory of a brief kiss to fever-warm lips. 

Helena’s hand goes limp and falls to her side, and there’s a sound like a sigh, and then — she’s gone, in the blink of an eye. The cannon shot is deafening to Dinah’s ears, and a horrible noise tears from her chest as her hands tremble against Helena’s face, fumbling to feel for a pulse and finding nothing. 

“I’m sorry,” Dinah repeats, the words sounding meaningless as she says it again and again, and she whispers them one last time with her lips brushing Helena’s forehead as she presses a final kiss there, to still-warm skin. She’s distantly aware of the anthem playing outside, voices and footsteps inside — here to retrieve her, to hold her aloft in victory, and to carry Helena away to an unmarked grave. Alone, forever; she’ll be cold, Dinah thinks, without anyone at her side, because she remembers how Helena would shiver at night until Dinah pressed closer. 

There are hands on her, trying to pull her away, but Dinah twists and writhes against them, and her throat is raw even though she can’t hear herself screaming; finally, there’s a pinch in her neck and she goes limp and numb, eyelids heavy, and she lets the darkness overtake her.

\---

The days that follow are a blur. 

She’s given the highest level of treatment: soft bedding and a bathtub the size of her room back home and all the food she could eat. But everything she eats turns to ash in her mouth, and after sleeping on hard stone for days on end, Dinah finds herself spending nights on the floor beside her bed. When she bathes, she almost doesn’t recognize herself; any softness has been whittled away to just skin and bone, and in the mirror, her eyes are haunted, distant.

A week is judged to be sufficient time for her to recover before going back in front of the cameras, and Dinah dreads it with every core of her being. She doesn't know how to pretend any longer, can’t smile for the crowds, not when she’s been scraped raw. 

The day finally comes, and Harley steps into her quarters with her characteristic cheer, but it slips away as soon as the door shuts behind her. For once, she doesn’t say anything, just approaches Dinah and takes her gently by the shoulders, then pulls her into a tight embrace. 

It’s the first time anyone’s touched her with anything more than clinical precision since Dinah left the arena, and suddenly she's fighting back tears, biting the inside of her cheek so hard that she tastes blood. 

"I've got the perfect gown picked out for you," Harley says when she steps back, voice as perky as always, but her eyes hold a world of kindness and sorrow.

—-

Dinah feels numb, stepping onstage to bright lights and a sea of faces in front of her, like she's been reduced to a fragile shell about to shatter at the slightest provocation. Harley had worked magic, covering bruises and the circles under Dinah's eyes to make her appear flawless, but nothing could be done for the hollowness that she'd seen looking back at her when Harley had given her a mirror. 

She shakes the interviewer's hand and forces a smile that feels like a grimace, looking out at the audience cheering her name and wondering how _fucked up_ these people have to be, to see someone reduced practically to a grieving, walking corpse and _cheer._

It's a blessing, in some twisted way, that she's moving through this on autopilot, that she doesn't fully absorb the impact of the questions asked of her — questions about how it feels to be the Victor, about her mother's legacy, about her experience with the Games.

But then the interviewer says, "Let's take a look at some highlights," and Dinah's heart stutters in her chest. She sees what must have played on screens across the nation, and while some of it focuses on the other tributes, it centers mostly around her, the Victor.

And Helena, of course. 

Helena, killing the Careers and dragging Dinah to safety. Helena stitching her up, handing her a bottle of water, finding food for them to eat. 

Helena smiling. Whole, healthy, _alive_.

And then their roles switch, and it's Dinah preparing food and keeping watch, and as much as it tears her heart from her chest to watch, Dinah can't look away. The thought of forgetting is even more horrid than the sight of watching Helena onscreen, growing nearer and nearer to death.

The crowd lets out a collective sigh at the sight of their kiss, and Dinah digs her fingernails into her palms hard enough to draw blood.

"Such a beautiful story," the interviewer sighs when the screen finally goes dark. "Tragic, and yet so touching."

 _It wasn't a beautiful story,_ Dinah wants to scream. _It was murder._

"I owe her my life," she says instead, and the tears that well up in her eyes aren't fake at all. "Because of her, I can go home. I'll never forget her."

"Beautiful," the interviewer repeats, and Dinah wants to spit in his face.

She smiles instead.

\---

“You’re growing like a weed, kid,” is the first thing Dinah says when she sees Cass, because the kid’s taller than Renee now. Cass grins, but holds back, looking hesitant, so Dinah crosses the distance between them and pulls Cass in for a hug.

“Toldja you’d win,” Cass says, muffled against her shoulder, and Dinah just holds on tighter and breathes in, face pressed against the crown of her head. She only pulls away to embrace Renee in turn, letting out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

The look on Renee’s face holds volumes, but she simply says to Dinah, “Let’s get you home,” and for now — that’s all Dinah needs to hear. 

\---

She never forgets. 

Every time Dinah sits down in front of a real meal, or slips between cool sheets, or sits up in the evenings and plays cards with Cass and Renee — she thinks of Helena. She replays their conversations, their moments of quiet companionship, and though nightmares come frequently, they’re interspersed with good dreams, dreams of Helena alive and healthy. She wonders, sometimes, what might have been — in a different world, a kinder one — what _they_ might have been. It’s a pointless venture, and yet Dinah can’t help herself. 

She’s home, and she’s safe —

But she never forgets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have the alternate version (with a happy ending) posted within a few days, so if that's more your cup of tea, keep an eye out!
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments or on [tumblr](https://ace-verity.tumblr.com/)!


	2. (happy ending)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the version that ends happily! Feel free to skip to halfway through if you already read chapter 1 (the sad version) - up until that point, the stories are virtually identical.
> 
> cw: themes/depictions of violence/death, illness, angst, vomiting, discussions and planning of/intent to commit suicide (injury occurs but no death occurs as a result)

“What if I get picked?”

“Cass, it’s your first year.” Dinah reaches for a ribbon to tie off Cass’s braid. “Your name is in there once. The odds of that… You’ll be alright.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” Dinah does her best to sound confident, and she gives Cass a smile in the mirror. “There, all done. Don’t mess with the ribbon, it’ll come loose. Go show Renee.”

As if on cue, the kitchen door clatters shut. “We need to go!” Renee calls from the hall.

“Coming!” Dinah yanks on her boots, lacing them hastily, and nudges Cass out the door. 

“Dinah did my hair,” Cass tells Renee, turning to show her as Renee herds them both to the door. 

“Looks good, kid.” Renee mouths _thank you_ at Dinah and takes Cass’s hand, places a hand on Dinah’s back as they walk. She’s nervous, Dinah can tell, although Renee will never say it: it’s in the set of her mouth, the tension in her shoulders. 

They join the throng moving slowly toward the town square, everyone dressed in their nicest clothes, and even though Dinah sees Cass’s friends clustered together ahead of them, Cass doesn’t make a move to leave Renee’s side.

“Twelve to eighteen, to the front,” a Peacekeeper recites, sounding bored, and Renee tugs them both to the side. 

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, kiddo. Chin up,” she tells Cass, and hugs her tightly. “Stick with Dinah, you’ll be fine. I’ll see you soon.” When Renee turns to Dinah, she doesn’t say anything, just pulls her tight. “Last time,” she finally murmurs into Dinah’s ear, and pulls away like it’s the last thing she wants to do. “You’ll be fine,” she repeats, like she’s trying to convince herself, and gives Cass’s hand one last squeeze before she turns away to join the other adults.

“Just stay right here, alright?” Dinah tells Cass once they’re at the front of the crowd of anxious girls, where the youngest all stand together. “I’ll come get you when it’s done.”

“Okay,” Cass says, and she lifts her chin up and sets her shoulders back. Pride wells up in Dinah at the sight, and she gives Cass one last quick hug before forcing herself to continue to the back.

The ceremony drags, and Dinah can feel anxiety bubbling up inside her as she stares ahead at the two bowls onstage. The left one, the girls’ one, is the one she can’t tear her eyes away from. She tries to think how many times her name’s in there: six for each year she’s been eligible, plus God knows how many times she’s accepted extra rations. Renee had done her best; she hadn’t signed up to raise an extra kid, after all, but things got tight in the winter, and Dinah hadn’t had a choice. She’d bring the rations home, and Renee would look so goddamn sad that Dinah couldn’t stand to look at her. 

It wouldn’t be unexpected if her name was pulled. Simple math, simple probability. The irony of it — a Victor’s daughter, reaped at age eighteen, like a family curse. 

A ripple of tension runs through the crowd once it’s time for the names to be drawn, and despite the heat of the sun, a cold trickle of sweat runs down Dinah’s spine. She doesn’t recognize the boy whose name is called; he’s maybe fifteen, and he plods up to the stage, tears running down his face. There’s a heavy silence over the square, and then:

“Cassandra Cain.”

Dinah’s blood runs cold, and she feels as though the ground’s been ripped out from under her feet. She’s paralyzed, frozen on the spot, as she watches Cass step out into the open. The ribbon dangles limp, untied from its bow, from the tail of her braid, and she only makes it two steps toward the stage before Dinah’s moving, pushing her way through the throng.

“I volunteer!”

Dinah hurries toward the stage, catching Cass by the shoulders.

“Dinah —”

“I’ll be okay,” Dinah tells her. “Go to Renee, you’re safe.”

“But — Dinah!” Tears well up in Cass’s eyes.

 _“Go,_ Cass.” There’s a heavy hand on her back, the Peacekeepers forcing her away from Cass and towards the stage. Her legs are leaden, and the air shimmers in her vision, warped by heat. It feels unreal, as she shakes the boy’s hand and listens to the escort wishing them a happy Hunger Games, like it’s a sick dream and any minute she’ll wake.

\---

“You’re gonna win, Dinah,” Cass tells her. “You’re gonna kick ass.”

“Damn right,” Dinah says softly. “Don’t you forget it.” She bites the inside of her cheek to will the tears away, tasting blood in her mouth as Cass’s arms wrap around her ribs and squeeze hard enough to hurt. “Be good, kid.”

Renee’s standing next to Cass, and she seems diminished somehow — tired, and worn down. But she still gives Dinah a sad, crooked grin and pulls her down into a tight hug.

“Come back to us,” is all she says, and she taps her finger against the pendant hanging from Dinah’s necklace — a delicate gold canary, the one that had been her mother’s. 

Dinah can't bring herself to speak, just nods and feels her throat closing up, and then the Peacekeepers are pulling her away, and she has no choice but to follow.

\---

“What’s this?” The stylist — Harley Quinn, she’d introduced herself with a broad grin and vigorous handshake — taps on her necklace. “Some kinda bird?”

“Canary,” Dinah answers stiffly.

“Canary, huh? That might work.” Harley tilts her head. “Yellow’s definitely your color. That sound good for your opening look?”

“I don’t give a fuck.” Her voice shakes with restrained anger. These people, acting like it’s a goddamn fashion show, when in a month’s time she’ll probably be dead. 

“Aw, c’mon,” Harley says. “Looks are important, y’know? Like a suit of armor. I can make you feel real powerful.”

“Gee, thanks.” _Like that’ll help at all in the arena,_ Dinah thinks.

"You gotta make people love you," Harley continues. "Whatever it takes. Make 'em laugh, cry, doesn't matter. It's all about the show, the drama." She leans in like she's sharing a secret. "They love drama."

Harley pulls back and smiles brightly at her, but there’s a tinge of sadness to it, and Dinah wonders how many tributes she’s dressed up one day and watched die within the space of a week. She doesn’t look to be much older than Dinah, but it’s hard to tell under the garish layers of Capitol makeup and alterations. 

Dinah has to admit, though, that Harley’s work is impressive. In the space of a few hours, she has a gown prepared, a shimmering deep gold that fits perfectly, and makeup to match. By the time she turns Dinah to face the mirror, Dinah almost doesn’t recognize herself.

“You look gorgeous, doll,” Harley gushes. “You’ll _kill_ out there.”

Not a great choice of words, Dinah thinks.

She tries to catch a glimpse of the other tributes during the parade — the Careers are easy to spot, looking smug at the front of the pack. The youngest is from District Five, probably no older than Cass, but many of them are in the older range. Some of them look scared, others have an air of (likely forced) confidence — but one girl just looks angry, and Dinah’s gaze keeps returning to her. She’s wearing a gown so deeply purple it seems black, and her hair looks wild — like she’d been running her fingers through it after it was styled. 

She doesn’t wave at the balcony where the president sits; she doesn’t even look up when her name is called:

_Helena Bertinelli._

\---

Dinah catches Helena Bertinelli staring at her, sometimes. At meals, and during training, and in the hall outside their suites. If it were anyone else, she would have taken issue with it, would have demanded to know what the hell was their problem — but Helena’s gaze isn’t threatening, just vaguely interested, and Dinah can’t bring herself to feel angry. She hears whispers — that Helena’s brother had been a tribute in last year’s Games at barely twelve years old, that he’d been killed on the first day — and Dinah vaguely recalls the face of a boy with the same dark hair and dark eyes as Helena, flashed on the television screen at the end of a bloody day. That their parents died in a mysterious accident not long after.

That the Reaping had been rigged against her, rigged to ensure that the Bertinellis are no more, because there are rumors that they’d been working against the Capitol, somehow, and that’s the price to be paid for treason.

Dinah doesn’t know what’s true, but she sees the unconcealed rage in Helena’s eyes when she looks out at the lavish fixtures of the Capitol, and no matter what Helena’s story is — Dinah can relate, because she feels that rage too.

Training is brutal, leaving every muscle in her body stiff and aching, and yet she feels stronger than ever — undoubtedly thanks to the abundance of food to eat and relentless training regimen. She focuses on close-quarters combat, kicking and punching dummies until her knuckles bruise and her hips ache, but she sees Helena across the gym training with some kind of bow and arrow. She hits the target every time, dead center, ducking and rolling and dodging, and it’s mesmerizing. 

The assessment day comes all too quickly, and Dinah finds herself waiting with eleven other girls in a locker room adjoining the gym, awaiting her turn. The room empties gradually, and soon there’s only two of them — Dinah, and Helena. 

Helena’s pacing the length of the room, tension written in every muscle in her body, and Dinah’s torn between silence and _saying_ something — she’s lonely, desperately so, and yet she knows that only one person can win the Games. It could come down to just the two of them, in the end, and Dinah’s not letting anything get in the way of returning home to Cass and Renee. 

_“Helena Bertinelli,”_ a voice calls over the loudspeaker, and without even thinking about it, Dinah says, “Good luck.”

Helena looks at her like she’s trying to decide whether she’s being sincere, and finally gives a jerky nod before disappearing through the door. 

Dinah goes next, moving effortlessly through the martial arts routine she’s prepared, and she’s surprised to find the judges actually attentive this late at night. It goes well, she thinks, and by the time she steps out of the shower once she’s back in her room, the listings are flashing on the screen. 

Her eyes dart immediately to her own name, and she lets out a sigh of relief. She’d scored an eight — not perfect, but better than average, and hopefully enough to win her some support. 

Helena’s name is at the top of the list, and next to it — _3._

It's low, far too low for the talent that Helena had shown in training — maybe the Gamemakers were biased against her from the start, Dinah thinks, or maybe Helena didn't bother to try at all.

\---

Dinah’s wearing another gown, this time black with gold accents that catch the light, and waiting backstage. The dress is itchy, and sweat trickles down her spine, making her shudder. The other tributes are mostly gone, aside from Clark — the male tribute from District Twelve — standing a few yards away; the interviews occur in order of district, and Dinah’s will be last.

There’s a monitor mounted on the wall, and right now it’s displaying Helena Bertinelli herself, this time in a blood-red dress and a slash of red lipstick that looks like a wound against her pale skin. The interviewer is excessively cheerful, trying to draw out a smile, but Helena stares at him with blank coldness, her face expressionless as she gives bland, flat answers. 

The crowd is silent, and eventually the interviewer gives up.

Clark, Dinah thinks, does alright — he’s nervous, but polite, and handsome in a generic way in his crisp pressed suit. Before she knows it, the stagehands are nodding at her, shunting her onstage as her name is called.

Dinah plasters on her widest, sweetest smile, waving to the crowd and taking her seat across from the interviewer.

“Dinah Lance,” he says, dragging the syllables out and beaming at her. “Not often that we get a second-generation tribute.”

 _That’s because most tributes end up dead,_ she thinks bitterly. “I suppose not,” she says instead, all wide eyes and charm.

“And a volunteer, no less.” He nods as if he’s impressed. “Tell me, were you hoping to continue your mother’s legacy?”

 _Stupid,_ Dinah thinks. As if her mother had ever spoken of the Games as anything more than a brutal slaughter, a political tool, an abomination. 

“I was just looking out for my sister,” Dinah explains.

“Your sister — adopted, yes? Cassandra?”

“My sister Cass, that’s right.”

“Lovely, lovely.” His face molds into a mask of sympathy. “So sweet of you. Now, your mother — she was a skilled fighter, you know.”

“Yes, of course.”

“But she had other talents as well.” He raises his eyebrows at her, and when Dinah doesn’t respond, he prompts, “Her lovely voice. I wonder, did she pass that on to you?”

“Well, I’m not quite as talented,” Dinah replies. “But yes, I love to sing.”

“We’d love to hear,” he says. “Wouldn’t we?”

The crowd cheers in response, and Dinah catches a glimpse of Harley in the front row, giving her a thumbs-up and a wide smile, then swallows down nausea. It feels wrong, dirty, and yet — it could help her, in the long run.

So she sings. Not long, just a few bars of an old lullaby she remembers from her childhood, but the crowd erupts when she finishes, and the interviewer nods, his eyes misted over.

 _Fake,_ Dinah thinks. All a facade. But she smiles and accepts the praise, and when she walks offstage to applause she bites her lip against the tide of anger welling inside her.

\---

“You all ready?” Harley asks cheerfully, straightening Dinah’s collar. She’s sweating in the outfit they’d given her — warm clothes, which means a cold climate, most likely. She’s used to the cold, thanks to the harsh winters of District Twelve, but it means that food will be harder to come by and exposure is a risk. 

“I guess,” Dinah answers, trying not to think about Cass and Renee sitting in front of the crappy TV at home, watching with bated breath to see if Dinah’s going to die in the cornucopia bloodbath. 

“You’ll be great, Canary! I’m rootin’ for ya!” 

Then Harley leans in close, pulling her into a hug but whispering quickly in her ear, “Don’t go for the cornucopia, you hear? That’s a great way to get killed. Run the other way. First thing to do is find water, alright? Get water, then shelter and food. Keep a low profile, play the long game, don’t attract attention. But remember — make ‘em root for you. They love the drama. Got it?” She pulls away, smiling as though she hadn’t said anything, and gives Dinah a pat on the back. “See you later, kid! Take care of yourself!”

“Harley…” Dinah swallows. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing, doll!”

And then the platform under Dinah’s feet is rising up, and Harley disappears from sight as the arena appears around her.

She’s facing the cornucopia, which looms huge and gray fifty yards away, and the other tributes are positioned around it in a circle. The air is biting cold, stinging Dinah’s face, and there’s a faint dusting of snow on the ground. They’re in a clearing surrounded by woods, and Dinah remembers Harley’s words: _Run the other way. First thing to do is find water._

The countdown sounding in the air around them, spoken by a disembodied voice, ticks ever closer to zero. Dinah spots the Careers across the circle from her, and then her gaze lands on Helena, who looks pale and fiercely determined from her position just a few tributes down. 

_Three. Two. One._

The world explodes into movement as the other tributes head for the cornucopia, and Dinah starts running as fast as her feet can carry her toward the woods. She hears screams from behind her but doesn’t look back, not until she’s deep into a thicket of trees. 

The screams fade, and there’s only silence.

\---

That night, twelve faces flash in the sky. Two of the Careers are dead. The District Three girl, the District Five boy and both from District Six — dead. District Seven and District Eight are gone, all four tributes. The boy from District Eleven — Helena’s district. Clark, her fellow tribute from Twelve, is dead, and though Dinah hadn’t known him well, she thinks of his mother, his cousins, and feels an ache of sadness inside her.

Twelve down, she thinks grimly. Eleven to go.

But she’s alive, with a meager bit of foraged food and shelter in a hollow under a tree, and that’s as much as she can hope for, at least for tonight.

\---

Dinah wakes up the next morning to a new layer of snow on the ground and a gnawing hunger in the pit of her stomach. The creek running a few yards from her shelter has frozen over, and she stomps on it to break the ice. The water does nothing for her hunger, only coats her insides with ice, and she knows she needs more food than just the berries she’d found the night before.

So she returns to the cornucopia. 

She moves slowly, cautiously, wincing at every broken branch and crunch of snow under her boots. It’s hard to judge the passage of time, but it feels like an eternity by the time she reaches the clearing. Dinah looks around, but silence lies like a blanket over the arena, and so she darts out into the open air. 

It looks like the risk of returning has paid off — there are still supplies scattered around, and she grabs an empty rucksack and starts filling it with granola bars, water bottles, a first aid kit, even a short pocketknife. Dinah’s almost giddy with excitement, and she tears into one of the granola bars right then and there, unable to resist. For the first time, she thinks she actually has a decent shot at surviving this — if she can just wait out everyone else, like Harley had said —

“Whatcha got there?”

It’s the pack of Careers, four of them now. They all have that same smug smile that pisses her off on sight, and she wants nothing more than to wipe it off their faces.

But she’s not stupid, because they’ve got her outnumbered four to one, and those odds won’t end well.

There’s no way in hell that Dinah’s about to give up her findings, so she turns on her heel and starts running, as fast as she can, away from them. The cold air burns in her throat and chest, and she can almost feel them just inches away, but if she can get to the woods — 

Her foot catches on a tree root, and she goes flying. They’re on top of her before she can push herself upright, and one of them flicks out a knife and grins. 

Like he _enjoys_ this.

Dinah’s distantly aware of a growing ache in her ankle, like she’s twisted it or worse, but she’s not about to let this psycho cut her open in sight of the entire goddamn country, so she rears back and headbutts him in the face, then kicks out at the legs of one of the girls. 

“Oh, you’re gonna fight?” the second boy says, and she manages to knock him aside with an elbow to the face when she sees a flash of metal — the knife, still grasped in the hand of the boy she’d given a bloody nose.

She lashes out, desperation making her movements frantic, but Dinah’s still weak from hunger, and it isn’t hard for them to pin her down against the frozen ground.

“Gonna make you pay, you bitch,” the kid with the knife sneers, and drives it down into her side.

Her vision goes white with pain, and her only coherent thought is — _I couldn’t even make it one day._

She thinks of Cass and Renee, no doubt watching at home, and wants to be sick.

The knife flashes in her vision again; it’s coated with her blood, now, and the kid holds it up for her to see.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he says softly, and the other Careers standing over her are laughing, laughing, choking —

Choking.

The knife hits the ground beside her head, blood staining the snow, and the kid sags to the side. There’s something sticking out of his neck, and Dinah squints to see it — an arrow, maybe?

“We need to go,” someone says above her, sounding like they’re speaking from a great distance, and then Dinah feels herself being hauled upright. Her side is on fire, and blackness is creeping in at the edges of her vision.

“Stay with me, Dinah.”

“Can’t,” Dinah manages, and then the world fades to darkness.

\---

She dreams strange, muddled dreams — one minute she’s home with Renee and Cass, and then she’s with her mother, and then she’s in the Capitol at a feast, but on the table there’s nothing but spilled blood all over the white cloth.

Dinah catches snippets of reality, warped and fuzzy though it is — stinging pain in her side, cool water in her mouth, mouthfuls of food eaten before she drifts back into dreams.

And through it all, a lanky, dark-haired girl, hovering at her side.

When Dinah finally wakes, fully this time, the realization that she isn’t alone is what sends her bolting upright, much to her regret a moment later as her side aches in protest.

“Whoa, hey.” A pair of hands land on her shoulders. “Calm down. You’re alright.”

The world comes into focus: she’s in a cave of some sort, quiet and cold, and the person holding her by the shoulders, looking at her intently — it’s Helena. 

Dinah pulls back on instinct, and Helena seems to remember herself, tucks her hands close to her chest and frowns at her.

“You saved my life,” Dinah says stupidly. “Why did you do that?”

Helena looks awkward. “I wasn’t going to — to leave you to die. Here, drink some water.”

Dinah drinks from the bottle Helena hands her; it could be poisoned, sure, but Helena had had plenty of chances to kill her already, and besides, her throat is desert-dry.

“You know that’s the whole point, right?” Dinah asks once she’s drunk her fill. “Leaving people to die? That’s how you win.”

“I _know_ that,” Helena says, irritated now. “I’m not fucking stupid. You’d rather I left you to bleed out on top of your granola bars?”

“No.” Dinah’s voice softens as she says, “I just — thanks. You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah.” And then Helena goes quiet.

“How long have I been out?” Dinah asks once the silence stretches longer than strictly comfortable.

“Two days,” Helena answers.

“Two —” Dinah gapes at her. “Two _days?”_

Helena shrugs, like it’s nothing. “Yeah.”

“How many are left? Besides us?”

Helena's brow furrows in thought. “Five. The four Careers are dead now,” and when she says it, a little pleased grin comes across her face and is gone again, “and then the District Three boy died yesterday too. I don’t know how.”

“Holy shit,” Dinah mutters, and then realizes — she hasn’t seen her wound, yet. She tugs at her coat, unzipping it, then pulls at the hem of the thermal shirt to reveal a makeshift bandage covering most of her side.

“I did my best,” Helena says, nodding at the bandage. “Stitched it up. The first aid kit you found probably saved your life.”

Dinah runs a finger along the bandage — it’s made of the same thermal material as her shirt and long underwear. “Where’d you get this?”

“Part of my sleeve.”

“Your sleeve? It’s fucking cold out there, and you used your clothes?”

“It was just a little bit!” Helena’s face is going red, out of frustration or embarrassment, Dinah doesn’t know.

“You could freeze out there ‘cause of me,” Dinah says, and that makes Helena smirk.

“But that’s how you win,” she parrots, eyes gleaming with mirth, and Dinah huffs irritably.

“Yeah, whatever.” Dinah shifts, trying to stand, and Helena’s on her feet immediately, bracing her with a hand on her arm.

“Careful, your ankle’s —”

“Fucked,” Dinah finishes, wincing as she shifts her weight. “Goddamnit.”

“Not broken,” Helena informs her. “Probably sprained. I tried to splint it, but you really shouldn’t be walking. What do you need?”

“Bathroom,” Dinah says dryly. “I can manage.”

“Oh. Right.” Helena blushes again, which makes no sense, given that she’s spent two days looking after Dinah already.

When Dinah hobbles back into the little cave, Helena’s cutting into a can of what looks like soup. There’s already a water bottle set out, and a granola bar beside that, like they’re actually eating at a table and not huddled in this cold, damp cave. 

“It’s not much,” Helena says apologetically, as if this isn’t practically a feast to Dinah. “I’ll go hunting tomorrow.”

“Hunting?” Dinah raises her eyebrows. “With your bow and arrow, you mean?”

“Crossbow,” Helena corrects. “Sure, rabbits and squirrels and stuff. Better than cold soup.”

Dinah can’t argue with that.

\---

“Why did you save me?” Dinah asks later, when it’s pitch-black out, and the only light inside the cave is coming from a weak flashlight that Helena had taken off the Careers. She sees Helena start to answer like she had earlier, and Dinah interrupts, “Really. Why do you care?”

Helena’s silent, the light playing across her pale features. She’d seemed angular and hard, all muscle and ferocity, back in the Capitol, but here she looks — young. Her cheeks still have a touch of youthful softness, and her eyes have lost their sheen of coldness.

“You volunteered for her,” she finally says. 

It takes a moment to click, but — “You mean Cass?”

Helena nods.

“Yeah, she’s only — she’s just twelve. I wasn’t gonna let her…” Dinah swallows hard and wills the thoughts away. “Anyway.”

“That was good,” Helena says softly. “You deserve to win.”

Her words fall heavy between them, another reminder that in the end, only one of them is allowed to make it out. “So do you,” Dinah replies, but the words feel weak, inadequate. 

Helena just shrugs, and the rage that had set her features during the opening parade flickers under the surface. “You have a family, don’t you?”

Dinah nods warily. “Cass, she’s like a little sister. My mom’s gone, but Renee took me in.” God, she misses them so bad it physically pains her. “What about you?” She regrets the question almost instantly, recalling the whispered rumors back in the Capitol, but it's too late to take it back.

Helena shakes her head slowly. “Everyone’s gone.”

“I’m sorry.” It isn’t enough, so Dinah moves a bit closer, presses against Helena, side-to-side, and that’s how the morning finds them.

\---

Nobody had died that day, and the thought seems to unsettle Helena.

“No drama,” she says darkly. “That means they’ll stir something up.”

Sure enough, she’s limping and shivering as she returns to the cave that evening bearing the cooked meat of two rabbits — safer to build a fire out there than close to their shelter, she’d explained.

“Avalanche,” she says flatly, when Dinah sees her uneven gait, her wet clothes, the scratches covering her face. “Went right down into a fucking stream. Almost got brained by a log, and nearly broke my shin — see?”

She peels back her pants and long underwear from the ankle up, revealing an ugly dark bruise right on the front of her shin. 

But Helena still smiles proudly when she unpacks the rabbit meat, portioning it between them, and she looks pleased with herself when Dinah makes a noise of contentment at the taste of it. 

There’s only one face in the memorial that evening, that of the death of the boy from District Nine — he had been young too, and Helena flinches when she sees the picture in the sky.

“Did you know him?” Dinah asks, but Helena shakes her head and says nothing more.

\---

"His name was Pino," Helena says quietly, startling Dinah — she'd thought Helena was sleeping already.

"Who?"

"My brother." Helena isn't looking at her; her gaze is fixed on the cave ceiling, eyes faraway. "He was a tribute last year. His twelfth birthday was just a week before."

Dinah wants to offer condolences, but she knows they'll just fall flat, and so she stays silent, letting Helena continue.

"I tried to volunteer," Helena adds after a moment, and her mouth twists in a mirthless smile. "They wouldn't let me. Against the rules."

Dinah remembers that desperation, hearing Cass's name — except it must have been multiplied a hundredfold for Helena, who hadn't been able to do anything about it.

She reaches out blindly, her hand finding Helena's in the dark and holding tight.

"I'm sorry," she says, wishing there was more she could say, and Helena just gives her hand a quick squeeze and doesn't say a word — doesn't need to.

\---

Dinah’s able to forage near the cave’s entrance the next day, feeling overall rejuvenated, but though Helena’s up and moving the next day like the avalanche never happened, Dinah’s concerned — not about her bruised leg, but about the other mishap Helena had mentioned: _Went right down into a fucking stream._ Helena’s coughing a bit, and moving slower than normal, and Dinah’s mind jumps automatically to the worst case scenario — a respiratory infection, or pneumonia. They don’t have antibiotics to handle that. 

“You feeling alright?” Dinah asks over dinner — squirrel, this time, and a can of soup.

“I’ll be fine,” Helena replies, and Dinah lets it go, even though Helena looks more drawn than normal in the dim light.

\---

“What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get out?”

Helena gives her a look, but plays along. “Eat. Duh.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Dinah bumps her, shoulder to shoulder. “Eat what?”

“I dunno, tacos. Spaghetti. Ice cream and cake.”

“Hell of a combination.”

“Yeah, well, I’m really hungry,” Helena says dryly. “What about you?”

“What would I eat? Not canned soup, that’s for sure.”

“What will you do?” Helena asks, voice soft.

“God, I don’t know.” _Hug Cass and Renee,_ is her first answer, but it would be a dick move for her to rub in the fact that she still has people waiting back home. “Take a long bath, probably.” She feels disgusting, her skin coated in grime and sweat, but there’s no way to clean herself without risking exposure.

Helena sighs. “That sounds amazing.”

For a moment, there’s silence, broken only by the quiet sound of their breathing. Then Helena says, “Your mom was a Victor, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah.” Dinah feels Helena shiver beside her. “Almost thirty years ago, now.”

“How’d she win?”

Dinah shrugs. “She never really talked about it.” Dinah had known not to bring it up, had known that her mother’s eyes would go distant and haunted if she did. “I know she had sponsors, though.”

“How’d she get sponsors?”

“Singing, I think,” Dinah answers, thinking back to her interview back in the Capitol. “People liked that. She was talented.”

“You are, too,” Helena points out. “I heard your interview. You have a nice voice.”

The sincerity in Helena’s voice fills Dinah with warmth despite the chill of the air. “Thanks.”

“You could do that.”

“Do what?”

“Get sponsors, I bet. Everyone likes you.”

Dinah shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s true.” Helena says it matter-of-factly. “You have a nice voice, and they like that you’re second-generation. Rare, you know? And you’re pretty, too.”

“You don’t look too bad yourself, H.”

Even in the dimness of the cave, Dinah can tell that Helena’s blushing, dropping her gaze to the floor. “I don’t know. They definitely don’t like me.”

“That’s…” Dinah wants to deny it, but she can’t, and Helena gives her a dubious look.

“It’s true.” She grins a little bit, not the least bit ashamed. “I didn’t try to be likable, and I’m not about to start.”

“Well, I like you.” The words spill out before she can think better of them — but they’re true.

“I like you too, Dinah.” 

And there it is again, that sudden warmth that makes Dinah’s breath catch in her chest. For a long moment, neither of them speak, the silence dragging out until Dinah thinks that Helena’s fallen asleep, but then she speaks up again.

“I’m glad I have you.” Helena’s words are quiet, as if she’s speaking to herself.

“Me too,” Dinah replies. “We’re a good team.”

Helena hums agreeably, shifting closer, and though her breathing soon evens out as she drifts off to sleep, Dinah finds herself awake. She glances over at Helena’s face, peaceful and free of the hard lines of worry that etch across her features in the daytime, and wonders how she could bear to win, if it means seeing Helena die. Helena, who saved her life, who makes her smile, who doesn’t give a fuck about playing the Capitol’s games.

Dinah thinks that it wouldn’t be much of a victory at all, if she has to live with that.

\---

Dinah’s awakened by the sound of a deep, raspy cough, and she shakes off the last remnants of sleep immediately, squinting to make out the outline of Helena doubled over at the mouth of the cave.

“Hey, you okay?” Dinah scrambles to her feet, but Helena straightens up.

“Fine.” Her voice is gravelly, but before Dinah can call bullshit, Helena points to the sky outside. “I think it might snow today.”

Dinah takes a closer look and feels her heart sink. Clouds are gathering above them, thick and woolly gray, and the air tastes sharp in the unquantifiable way that always signals snow back home. “It’s gonna be bad,” she says, not knowing how, exactly, she’s so sure of that. “We have enough food?”

“Depends,” Helena answers, looking at the pile of supplies in the corner. There are three cans of soup and four granola bars, plus half a dozen water bottles. “For a day, sure. Water’s not a problem when there’s snow on the ground. Two, three days…” She trails off, but she doesn’t need to continue. 

“You up to go hunt?” Dinah asks, and immediately wishes she hadn’t — because Helena straightens up and nods, clearly determined. 

“I was gonna go out now, see if I can get something before the storm hits.”

“I’m coming with,” Dinah tells her and Helena instantly balks.

“It’ll be too loud with two people — and we can’t leave the shelter alone, what if —”

“I’m not letting you go out alone.” Dinah’s tone brooks no argument. “We’ll stay close so I can keep an eye on things.”

“Fine.”

\---

In the end, it’s a pointless venture. By the time Helena manages to kill and skin a rabbit, the snow has already begun to fall in large, clumped flakes. It would be impossible to light a fire, so Helena stows the rabbit in a snowbank just outside in the hopes that it will freeze and keep until the storm abates, and the two of them trudge back to the cave, Dinah with a tiny gathering of foraged berries parceled in her coat pocket. Helena stumbles twice on the short walk, and by the time they’re back inside, her breathing is labored and ragged. 

“You need to rest,” Dinah tells her. “I’ll get us something to eat.”

What unsettles her the most is that Helena complies without argument — just sinks down onto the ground and closes her eyes. 

The storm is in full force, now, snow swirling past the entrance of the cave and gathering outside. Dinah hadn’t even considered what might happen if it piles so high that the entrance is blocked — they could suffocate in here, trapped and helpless. 

It’s a risk to open a can of soup when the storm has barely started, but they need their strength, so Dinah wrenches the lid off with the pocketknife and divides it in uneven halves, pouring the slightly larger helping into an empty can and handing it to Helena.

“Go on, eat up,” she tells her, and Helena sips at it obligingly. She gives up halfway through, pushing it away with a look of displeasure, and Dinah bites her lip and reaches across to feel Helena’s forehead. 

It’s no wonder she’s not hungry — she’s burning up.

“You’re really warm, Helena,” Dinah says, willing the words past the lump in her throat. “You’ve got a fever.”

“No, I’m cold.” Helena shivers as if to prove her point. “I’m gonna lie down. You can finish my soup.” She curls against the wall, closing her eyes tightly, and Dinah feels panic rise within her — _she doesn’t know what to do._ At home, when Cass is sick, Renee usually makes broth and simple foods, puts a cool cloth on her forehead to keep her temperature down. But Dinah can’t do any of that. She rummages frantically through the first aid kit, but all she can find is a few packets of aspirin. She scoops snow into the empty soup cans and places them inside, in the hope that the snow will melt. She clears away the accumulated snow from the entrance to the cave so that they can breathe, and then —

She doesn’t know what to do.

Dinah thinks back to Harley’s words before the opening parade: _You gotta make people love you. Make 'em laugh, cry, doesn't matter. It's all about the show._ She thinks of Helena, telling Dinah that she could get sponsors, if she tried; thinks of Helena’s blush when Dinah had told her _You don’t look too bad yourself._

It feels wrong, somehow, like she’s taking advantage of something, or being dishonest — but is she, though? Maybe it’s the stress of the Games, the loneliness and desperation of it, but Dinah can’t deny the warmth that she feels when she looks at Helena, the fear that’s spiking through her as she looks at Helena’s huddled, tense form.

Besides, she reasons, the Games are all about pageantry, show — all artifice and glittering facades over brutality and suffering. If this is what it takes to buy them some time, then Dinah won’t hesitate — she’ll do anything, at this point.

Helena stirs, blinking awake, and her eyes follow Dinah as she crosses over to kneel beside her.

 _Trust me,_ Dinah begs her, tries to convey through her eyes alone, and she takes Helena’s hands in her own. “I can’t stand to see you like this,” she tells her. _True._ “I’ll do anything, Helena.” _True._ She takes a deep breath and finishes, “I think — I’m in love with you.”

Helena’s eyes widen just a bit, and for a moment doubt flickers across her face, a silent question — _is this real?_

Dinah doesn’t know, but she wants it to be — _needs_ it to at least appear that way — and so she leans down, cupping Helena’s face in one hand, and kisses her. _She’s warm,_ Dinah notes automatically; the heat of the fever carries to Helena’s lips, which are dry and chapped against Dinah’s own. When Dinah draws back, Helena lets out a noise, half-sigh and half-longing, and her eyes are sad. 

Dinah knows from just one look that Helena understands exactly what Dinah’s doing — trying to buy sympathy, support, _time._ For a split second, Dinah wonders whether she’ll play along — _I didn’t try to be likable,_ Helena had said, _and I’m not about to start._

And then Helena reaches up and rests a hand on Dinah’s cheek, and rises up to meet her, and even when their lips part, Helena keeps her forehead resting against Dinah’s. 

The way Helena looks at her — it breaks Dinah’s heart, whether it’s feigned or not, because the depth of emotion in her gaze says more than words ever could. 

Dinah just hopes that it works. 

\---

It’s hard to tell the difference between night and day, with the storm raging outside, but the sound of the nightly cannon at least tells Dinah that the day is at its end. Another death today, though Dinah hadn't dared venture out to see who they were, and that leaves just the two of them and two other tributes somewhere in the arena. Helena had only woken up a few times, and each time Dinah had gotten her to drink, to eat a bit, to swallow some crushed aspirin — but each time, she’d seemed weaker, no matter how much she slept.

The wind howls outside as Dinah settles down beside Helena. Helena, though asleep, burrows instinctively toward her warmth; her face is pale apart from a splotch of red high on each cheekbone, and lying next to her is like sleeping by a furnace.

When Dinah wakes to gray light, the entrance of the cave is half-covered by snow, and it’s still coming down — though hopefully not as heavily.

She extracts herself from Helena’s grasp and clears away as much snow as she can. By the time she comes back in, Helena hasn’t stirred, and for a moment Dinah’s heart seems to stop in her chest

Then Helena coughs weakly and blinks, and Dinah lets out a breath of relief.

“Let’s get you some water,” she says in a voice of false cheer.

The day continues in that way: Helena wakes and manages a bit of food and water, Helena goes back to sleep, Dinah frets. Rinse and repeat. She thinks Helena’s delirious, or nearly so; she twists and whimpers pitifully in her sleep, once flailing so hard that she nearly smacks Dinah across the chin. Dinah’s almost scared to touch Helena’s forehead, dreading what she might find, and when she finally brings herself to do it, the skin is even hotter than it had been the day before. 

It’s easier than she would have thought to ‘pretend’ — until it feels like she isn’t pretending at all. Dinah stays at her side, combing her fingers through Helena’s hair, and though it feels awkward at first, soon it becomes second nature. She finds herself humming, then singing quietly — singing had helped her mother gain support, after all, and the sound seems to soothe Helena even just a bit.

Without Helena to talk to, Dinah's alone with her thoughts. She thinks about Cass and Renee back home, wonders what they're doing — eating together, or sleeping, or sitting in front of the television unable to tear their gaze away. Dinah's closer to making it out alive than she'd thought possible, and she hasn't even had to kill anyone to get here. Harley's advice had been sound, she supposes.

A few more days. Surely they can make it a few more days, especially if they gain support from sponsors, and maybe the other tribute will die of exposure or as the result of some sick twist cooked up by the Gamemakers. And then it'll be just the two of them, Dinah and Helena, and —

Then what? She doesn't want Helena to die for her, doesn't want her to die at all. Dinah glances over at Helena's form, curled against the cold, and for a moment there's a dark whisper in her mind — that maybe, it's a mercy that Helena's sick, so that Dinah won't be to blame when she's the last one standing. Illness is impartial, unfeeling, far more so than a blade or a crossbow bolt. No blood on her hands if Helena dies, and she could go home again and leave the arena behind like a distant dream. 

It would be logical, in a cruel way. The best outcome. What's more, Helena wouldn't blame her. It's what she would want, for Dinah to live even at the cost of Helena's own life. Maybe there’s no use in trying to capture the sympathy of the audience, because in the end, only one of them will make it out — it’s just prolonging the inevitable.

And Dinah feels sick at the thought, forces it from her mind and swallows down the bitter guilt that rises in her throat for the fact that she'd even considered it. She won't give in this easily, and won't let Helena give in either.

\---

Her efforts, the singing and open affection, pay off — it must be late afternoon, the sky darkening already and the snow still falling, when a flash of silver catches her eye. Dinah’s hand flies instinctively to the blade at her side, but after silence stretches out for a long moment, she lets herself hope that help has arrived. Helena’s awake, has been for a while, and Dinah carefully extricates herself from her place next to Helena. 

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Dinah stands, still holding the blade in front of herself. “Stay here.”

She almost laughs out loud from sheer relief when she sees it — a silver parachute resting on the ground, tied to a metal tin that’s steaming in the snow. It’s warm to the touch, and she brings it closer to her face and inhales: broth, still hot. 

“Thank you,” she says aloud, a smile growing on her face. 

It’s the best thing Dinah’s had since the storm began, and possibly even since the start of the Games — savory and filling, warming her from the inside out. But she allows herself one spoonful for every two that Helena manages to swallow — it’s slow going, since the last thing Dinah wants is to for either of them to end up sick, and since Helena’s appetite is diminished to begin with. 

“Feeling any better?” Dinah asks when the last dregs of broth are gone, and Helena attempts a smile. 

“A little,” she says, and tilts her chin up to accept the kiss that Dinah presses to her lips. Her smile shifts a bit, becomes more genuine just for a moment, and there’s a softness to her gaze as she looks at Dinah.

“Good.” It’s a start, Dinah thinks — if Helena can get her strength up, if they can keep the sympathy of the viewers enough to earn more broth or even medicine, maybe she’ll get better. 

She has to.

\---

Maybe it had been foolish, naive to hope for an improvement, Dinah thinks as she rubs circles between Helena’s shoulderblades, holding her steady as she coughs so hard Dinah fears she’ll crack a rib. How long had the optimism lasted? A few hours, maybe, until she’d woken to find Helena struggling for air beside her, until she’d pulled Helena’s hair back from her face with one hand and held the empty broth tin in front of her chest as last night’s supper made its reappearance. 

It overwhelms Dinah, and suddenly tears are streaming down her own cheeks as she sits helpless, useless, in the dark. She brushes the tears away as best she can, makes soothing noises and wishes she couldn’t hear the choking sound of the infection wreaking havoc on Helena’s body.

“I’m sorry,” Helena wheezes when the coughing fit finally ends, because Dinah knows what she’s thinking — that’s a full meal, a good meal, gone to waste. The same thought had come to Dinah unbidden, and she’d forced it from her mind as soon as she could.

“Not your fault, love,” Dinah tells her, and the pet name falls from her lips so naturally that she wonders if it's acting at all. “I’m right here. Tell me what you need.”

“Can you sing again?”

“Of course.” 

It's become habit, now, to finger-comb Helena’s hair as she sings, and now she twists it into short, careful braids almost without thinking. Even after days in the arena and all the muck and sweat and grime that entails, her hair is soft, easy to work with. Dinah feels a pang of discomfort when she remembers that they’re being broadcast across the nation — it feels too intimate, too personal, like the world has narrowed to just the two of them in this space. 

Helena’s eyes soon drift closed, and her breathing changes as she falls asleep sitting against the wall, but even then, Dinah keeps singing. 

\---

There are no parachutes on the ground outside for them in the morning, and Dinah spends the next hours waiting, hoping. Each careful caress and soft kiss between them feels like a plea, and still nothing comes.

They’re nearly out of food, just one can of soup remaining between them, when Dinah hears something outside — the snap of a branch, and footsteps coming closer. Helena tries to sit up, and Dinah steadies her and reaches for the pocketknife they’ve been using as a can opener. The crossbow is beside it, but Dinah’s never used one before, so she presses it into Helena’s grasp.

“Wait here,” she whispers, but as soon as she gets to her feet, a figure appears in the entrance of the cave — the last tribute, a boy their age. He’s skin and bones, practically, and there’s a gash running down his forehead and cheek that’s crusted over with dried blood. There’s a light of desperation in his eyes, and he flings himself forward, a blade in hand; Dinah just barely manages to lunge forward, blocking him from attacking Helena. 

The cave is too small for a fight like this. Dinah lands enough solid blows to stun him, sending him reeling back, but he fights back even harder, clipping her with an elbow to the mouth. She can feel her lip split with the impact, and blood fills her mouth. Dinah lashes out almost blindly, and she hears him curse as he goes down hard — but he falls down not even a foot away from Helena, and the knife is still in his hand, too close for comfort —

As if she’s using every last bit of her strength, Helena strikes out, driving the sharp end of her weapon forward. The crossbow clatters to the stone floor, but the damage is done — he falls back, hands pressed against his chest, and lets out a low groan of pain. 

The adrenaline is draining from her system, leaving Dinah shaking and unsteady, but she manages to grab him under the arms and haul him out into the snow. He’s alive, breathing shallowly, and Dinah feels her gut twist with nausea at the sight of scarlet against the pure white blanketing the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and his eyes meet hers — the desperation is ebbing away, and he no longer looks crazed or vicious, just impossibly young.

And then they flutter shut, and the movements of his chest still. 

Dinah manages to stumble away, just a few feet from the body, before she drops to her knees and heaves up the little food she’s eaten that day. Tears freeze on her face, and the sour taste in her mouth mixes with the lingering copper tang of blood. 

It’s just the two of them, now.

\---

Dinah doesn’t say a word when she steps back into their shelter, busying herself with menial tasks — gathering snow to melt into water, tidying the supplies knocked aside in the fight — but all the while, she can feel Helena’s eyes on her. The silence stretches, tense and heavy, until — 

“Dinah.”

“No.” Dinah knows what she’s going to say, can’t bring herself to look at her.

“You can go home now,” Helena says softly. “You can see them. Cass and Renee.”

“No, you know what? We’re both getting out of this. I’ll find a way.”

“That’s not possible.” Helena’s as stubborn as ever. “Only one Victor, remember? It has to be you. You're likable, remember? You'll be a good Victor.”

“I don’t give a fuck. I’m not leaving you, dumbass.”

“You have to.”

“Bullshit. I don’t have to do anything.”

“You have to go home,” Helena tells her. Her eyes are dark, darker than the darkest shadows of this goddamn cave, and once Dinah meets her gaze she can’t look away. “They’re waiting for you. Nobody’s waiting for me.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s alright, for you to —”

Dinah can’t say it — _for you to_ _die._

“I want you to be happy.”

“How the hell can I?” Dinah snaps. “How would I be able to live with this?”

“I know you,” Helena says simply. “You’re strong. You have a family, people who love you. You can’t leave them.”

Dinah’s throat closes up; she thinks about Cass, saying _You’re gonna win_ with all the confidence in the world, and Renee, telling her _Come back to us._ Her hand moves unconsciously to the pendant on her neck, still there despite everything, and she runs a careful finger across the delicate gold. 

“That’s pretty,” Helena murmurs. She’s slipping away again, the fight and their conversation having clearly exhausted her, and Dinah goes to her side and sinks down next to her. Helena reaches up, touching the canary with a gentleness that contradicts the ferocity she’d shown moments ago in the struggle for their lives. 

“It was my mother’s,” Dinah tells her. “For good luck.”

“She’d want you to live.” Helena’s words catch in her throat, and she coughs weakly, taking a breath that shudders in her lungs. “Pretty,” she says again, but she’s not looking at the necklace anymore but rather at Dinah’s face, and her fingers ghost against Dinah’s neck, trailing feverish heat across the skin. Despite everything, her eyes are impossibly clear and calm. 

“Helena…” Dinah trails off, at a loss for words.

“I saw you in the Capitol and I couldn’t look away,” Helena says quietly. “I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”

“You need to rest,” Dinah tells her, blinking away tears. “In the morning, we can —”

Helena shakes her head. “Dinah.”

“Just hold on longer, we can figure something out —” As she says it, she knows that it’s impossible, that there’s no way they’re getting out of this. Even if Helena’s fever breaks, the Gamemakers won’t stop until there’s only one of them remaining. Even if they make it through the night, there’s no telling what horrors will come in the morning. 

But still Dinah pleads, “Just hold on, Helena. Try for me.”

Helena doesn’t respond to that, just shivers and shifts to lie down, exhaling as Dinah settles down next to her. “What’s the first thing we’ll do when we get out?”

 _We._ Dinah doesn’t know if Helena says it for her own benefit or for Dinah’s, but either way she takes a breath and makes a noise like she’s thinking. “I’ll take you back home,” she says. “And then we can sleep in a real bed, and eat real food, not this canned bullshit.” Dinah watches the smile that flickers across Helena’s face, holds onto it, memorizes it. “It’ll be warm and sunny, and we can walk in the woods — there’s a pond that I take Cass to sometimes, so we can swim there and listen to the birds.”

“Would they like me? Your family?”

“They’d love you.” Dinah’s never been so certain of anything. “Just like I do.”

And Helena smiles so wide and bright that it almost erases the gauntness of her cheeks, the circles under her eyes. Dinah’s breath catches in her throat at the sight of it — _beautiful,_ Dinah thinks. In spite of everything, the violence and bloodshed around them, they’ve found something all their own, something beautiful. 

Without thinking, she leans in. Helena’s lips are dry, chapped and feverish against her own; the kiss is soft, chaste, gentle, and Dinah draws away.

“Was that for them?” Helena asks. _Them_ — the audience. The Capitol, watching their every move, savoring the _drama_ of it all.

“No,” Dinah reassures her. “Not at all.”

“Good. I hate them. I hope they hate themselves.” For a moment, the rage that Dinah had seen on her face back in the Capitol is back, but Dinah takes her hand and kisses her fingertips, and the anger fades away. 

“I won’t let them forget,” Dinah promises. “Never. I’ll never forget you.”

She couldn’t, Dinah knows, not even if she tried. 

Helena nods, just the tiniest movement, and doesn’t look away from Dinah until her eyes finally drift shut as she gives in to exhaustion. Dinah tries to commit every detail of Helena’s face to memory, unwilling to forget a single thing, and exhaustion has nearly dragged her into unconsciousness when she hears it — a faint but unmistakable chime. 

A parachute lands at the entrance to the cave.

Dinah’s on her feet and crossing to retrieve it immediately, tearing the silk away and fumbling with the box attached. There’s a syringe inside, and her heart pounds nearly out of her chest as she squints to make out the label. It’s too dark, and she drops to the ground, searching desperately for the flashlight, wondering if it could be the cure that Helena needs —

Her hand lands on something hard and cylindrical, and she clicks on the light and points it at the label. 

Not a cure, she realizes, her heat sinking. Morphling — painkiller. A final mercy.

The message is clear: _There’s no hope for her._

They want Helena to die. They want Dinah to be Victor.

Dinah has the sudden urge to cast it aside, to shatter it, but she sets it aside, just out of reach, and lies down again beside Helena, buries her face in the crook of Helena’s neck, counts her shallow breaths. 

Dinah’s limbs are heavy, yet she’s wide awake, mind spinning desperately as she tries to imagine a way out of this, despite the fact that with every minute that passes, Helena’s breathing grows even more labored. _There can only be one,_ Helena had said earlier, and Dinah can’t think of a way around it. The Capitol needs its Victor, after all.

And then Dinah’s struck by a revelation.

_The Capitol needs its Victor._

She can’t sit back and watch Helena die in front of her. She won’t play the Capitol’s games, not any longer, not at this cost. 

The timing has to be right — otherwise, this plan, frantic and impulsive as it is, won’t work. So Dinah waits.

Just before dawn, something changes — Helena’s breathing goes even more strained, each breath rattling in her chest, and somehow Dinah knows.

It’s now or never. 

She presses a kiss to Helena’s ashen forehead, strokes a hand over her cheek, sees her eyelids flutter at the touch.

And then Dinah picks up the knife, and says, loud and clear and confident, “You can have both of us, or neither.” She sets the blade against her throat, feels her own pulse fluttering against it. “Your choice.”

Dinah closes her eyes, feels the blade pierce her skin, feels blood begin to spill hot down her neck —

Then the voice of the Gamemakers rings out, urgent and loud, telling her to _stop,_ announcing the Victors — _Victors,_ Dinah notes, dazed and triumphant. She lets the blade clatter to the ground, presses a hand to the sluggishly-bleeding wound on her neck, reaches for Helena’s hand.

“We did it,” she whispers, and brings it close, kisses Helena’s palm. “Hold on, Helena, we’re gonna be okay.”

She’s distantly aware of footsteps, then hands tugging at her, but Dinah insists, “She needs help, help her first — I’m _fine_ —”

There’s a pinch to her neck, and her limbs go numb, but she refuses to let her eyes close until she sees that Helena’s being carried out behind her.

 _We did it,_ she thinks, and lets the darkness swallow her.

\---

Dinah doesn’t know how much time passes; she’s only half-aware of her surroundings, sterile white walls and oppressive silence and nurses who don’t speak. She drifts in and out of consciousness, thoughts fuzzy and muddled — 

And then one morning, she wakes.

Her throat is dry, terribly so, and for a panicked moment she’s back in the arena, waking in the cave for the first time after her injury. But her thoughts clear, and it all floods back to her.

_Helena._

Dinah sits up — or at least she tries to. There’s a thick bar around her middle, pinning her flat to the mattress, and cuffs on her wrists locking them against the bedframe. Fear wells up inside her, and she struggles against the restraints.

Then a nurse appears at her side, taking her by the shoulders and easing her back down.

“Where’s Helena?” Dinah asks, the words coming out raspy and faint. “Is she alright?”

Silence. The nurse brings a cup to Dinah’s mouth; the water is cool, soothing her throat, but after a few mouthfuls of water Dinah turns her head to the side.

“Where is she? I need to know.” The restraints dig into her wrists. “I need to — _fuck._ I need to see her, goddamnit!”

The nurse sets down the glass and meets Dinah’s gaze, eyes solemn. She holds up a finger — _wait._ And then she leaves. 

Helena _has_ to be alive, Dinah thinks, trying to keep a level head even as panic tightens like a vice around her chest. She _has_ to, because Dinah would know if she weren’t —

The nurse comes back, and this time she’s followed by a woman in a white physician’s coat over white scrubs, starched almost to the point that it’s blinding.

“Miss Lance,” the doctor says, and sits beside her, takes her hand. Even that gesture is clinical and cold, but the cuffs on her wrists keep Dinah from pulling away, even as the doctor begins to speak. 

She tells Dinah that it had been too late — Helena’s illness had progressed too far, beyond even the technologies and advances of the Capitol’s medicine. That they couldn’t save her. 

That Helena is dead, and Dinah is the Victor. Alone.

“I’m so sorry,” the doctor says, and Dinah shakes her head. 

“You’re lying. She can’t be — she _has_ to be alive.” The words spill from her mouth, desperate and growing louder by the minute. She sees a nurse injecting clear liquid into her IV, but even that sight can’t stop her. “What the hell do you mean, _you’re sorry?_ You couldn’t save her? That’s _bullshit,_ you tell me _right now_ where she is — I need to see her, I need to — to say goodbye, I need —”

Her voice sputters and dies in her throat as her head grows heavy — the drugs kicking in. “I need to see her,” Dinah manages, and then she’s dragged once more into the dark.

\---

She doesn’t know if it’s the drugs she’s given or grief that steal away the next days, turning them into an endless gray parade even once they let her out of the med bay and release her to a private room overlooking the city. The food given to her is rich and decadent, but it sticks and turns to ash in her throat, threatening to choke her. The softness of the sheets and mattress is overwhelming, suffocating, and Dinah finds herself spending nights on the floor, wishing for the warmth of Helena beside her. 

She can’t be dead. Dinah knows this as a fact. How could she be, when Dinah had risked everything to get them both out? How could she be, when the Capitol’s science is so advanced? 

How could she be, if Dinah doesn’t feel the loss of her, acute and undeniable, a fundamental truth?

When her mother had died, Dinah had known even before she’d seen the body or heard the news. She’d been sitting in class, and suddenly a piercing chill surged over her, and she’d _known._ There’s nothing like that, with Helena — no horrid, irrefutable _sense_ of her absence. 

And yet there’s no sign of her presence, either. Dinah Lance is hailed as the Victor, never mind that both of them had been pulled from the arena, alive still. Dinah might be able to dismiss it all as a horrible dream, if it weren’t for the sight of herself in the mirror: the circles under her eyes, the gauntness of her cheeks, the split on her lip that’s healed, leaving behind a thin scar that’s almost imperceptible, and the puckered mark on her throat, right over her pulse, from the edge of the blade. 

All of it reminds her, constantly — _it was real._

\---

It seems like adding insult to injury, salt to a wound, that Dinah’s expected to step back in front of the lights and cameras and crowds again for her Victor interview, now that she’s a live wire, alight with pain and rage. When Harley knocks on her door and steps inside, Dinah doesn’t return her smile. She stiffens at first when Harley wraps her in a tight embrace, the first time anyone’s touched her with anything more than clinical precision since they’d left the arena, but after a moment she leans into it, bites her cheek hard enough that she tastes blood as she fights back tears. 

Dinah only half-listens to Harley’s enthused chatter about the dress she’s designed and the jewelry she’s brought, because her mind is swirling with questions, and finally in the middle of Harley’s remark on the shade of eyeshadow she’d selected, Dinah can’t keep silent any longer. 

“I don’t believe them,” she blurts out. “Helena can’t be dead, I’d know if she were —”

And then Harley’s resting a finger on Dinah’s lips, halting her. Her eyes are deadly serious. “Listen to me.” She speaks quietly, quickly. “Your stunt turned a lot of heads. You were in love — not thinking straight. Not trying anything more than just to get the two of you out. And now you’re grieving. Sell it.”

“But —”

“No.” Harley shakes her head. “You wanna go home? Don’t doubt, don’t question. You play the part. She’d want you to be safe. This is how you stay safe — stay quiet. Helena’s gone, Dinah, but you still have a life ahead of you. Don’t waste it.”

Dinah’s stunned for a moment, taken aback by the intensity of Harley’s words, but finally she says, “I won’t.” 

“Good. Now, which shade do you like? I’m a big fan of the gold, but that’s just me.”

\---

The lights and sounds that greet Dinah when she walks onstage are even more overwhelming than they had been at the interview before the Games began, and she tries not to wince away as she crosses to the front, shakes the interviewer’s hand. A strange numbness descends over her, keeping her on autopilot, and every smile seems like a grimace, almost painful.

_Play the part._

She gives the answers that are expected of her, about her mother’s legacy and Cass and Renee back home and her strategy in the Games, and the crowd eats it up, cheering and sighing in all the right places, and Dinah swallows down burning rage when she looks out at the sea of faces who don’t understand one bit what she’s been through. 

And then the highlight reel begins to play, and Dinah can’t look away — because she sees Helena, fierce and healthy and _alive._ Dinah’s breath catches in her throat; her chest aches, and her nails bite into the flesh of her palms — but still she watches, as on the screen in front of her, their last days play out, and the brightness in Helena’s eyes is no longer fierce but rather feverish.

The first kiss they share is met with loud sighs of sympathy and awe from the crowd, and Dinah wants to scream — because those stolen moments are _theirs;_ they had always been real, so much more than playacting in a desperate last measure to ensure their survival, and when Dinah sees the way Helena looked at her, and the way she herself had looked at Helena, she wonders how she’d ever told herself otherwise.

She misses Helena with a passion that wrenches at her heart. 

“We were all captivated — stunned, even — by the risk you took at the end, Miss Lance,” the host says when the clips playing onscreen have transitioned to show the final night. Their last conversation, their brief kiss, play out in front of them, and Dinah tries to memorize it all. “Let’s take a look, shall we?”

And there she is — knife to her own throat, declaring to the world her refusal to give in. It’s with sick fascination that Dinah watches the blood begin to spill — _her_ blood — until the voice of the Gamemakers urges her to stop, and the knife falls to the ground. 

“What a moment,” the host remarks. “Tell me, what was going through your mind as you made that call?”

“I just thought — I wasn’t even thinking, not really.” _Lie._ But Dinah keeps going. “I couldn’t stand the thought of living without her. I still can’t.” That’s not a lie, not in the least. The truth of it seems to tear out of her, raw and brutal, and for the first time, it sinks in — Helena’s gone. 

No matter how hard Dinah had tried to get them both out, to the point of risking her own life, she’s gone.

\---

Cass and Renee are waiting for her when she gets off the train, and the relief that floods Dinah at the sight of them is nearly overwhelming. She swallows down the sudden swell of emotion, though, and gives Cass a broad grin.

“When the hell did you get so tall, kid? What’s Renee been feeding you, huh? C’mere.”

Cass practically crashes into her, hugging her almost tightly enough to hurt, but Dinah doesn’t mind one bit. She hugs Renee next, and while Renee’s gentler than Cass, the embrace is no less comforting. 

_Home._ Dinah can hardly believe it.

\---

Dinah tries to occupy herself over the weeks that follow — between moving into the Victor’s Village with Cass and Renee and readjusting to routine life in District Twelve, it should be easy to keep herself from dwelling on the Games, the Capitol — and on Helena. 

But it isn’t. Every moment is overshadowed by sorrow, and regret, and that lingering doubt — the sense, deep down, that Helena isn’t dead at all.

She never speaks of it, remembering Harley’s warning, but she thinks the others can tell something’s on her mind. Cass asks Dinah to share a room with her, just for the first few nights in their new house, but then days turn to weeks and neither of them suggest that Dinah switch to her own room. Dinah doesn’t know whether it’s more for Cass’s benefit or her own, but it’s a comfort nonetheless, as the sound of quiet, even breathing gives her something to ground her when she wakes in a cold sweat, remembering gentle, hesitant touches and dark eyes made glassy by fever.

And Renee never asks outright, but then, she’d known Dinah’s mother long enough that she surely remembers the toll of the Games on the Victor. Instead, she makes Dinah tea late at night when she can’t sleep, sits up with her in comforting silence. 

Even as Dinah settles into a routine — walking Cass to school and home again, going to the marketplace with Renee, venturing into the woods to savor the dappled sunlight and quiet air — there’s a part of her, she thinks, that’s still back in the arena. On edge. Afraid. Vigilant.

So she notices all the little changes, cataloguing them: the tension in the marketplace, the way everyone else in the district seems reserved and hesitant to look each other in the eye, the increased number of Peacekeepers standing guard at every corner. The murmurs of uprisings, unrest in other districts. The Capitol fighter planes that soar through the sky, crawling low over the district, every day at dawn and dusk. The bags she discovers in a closet, packed with extra clothes and canned food and medical supplies, and when Renee sees her looking, a moment of silent understanding passes between them — _just in case._

Dinah keeps her head down in public, doesn’t say a word. _Play the part._

\---

The whispers continue into late winter, building gradually, and they all come back to one thing: a leader, the symbol of the resistance, clad all in black and masked.

 _Huntress,_ she calls herself.

She carries a crossbow. 

Dinah sees her on the television screen, once — standing in front of a bombed hospital, decrying the abuses of the Capitol through a cloud of smoke and sparks. The mask obscures most of her face, showing only her eyes — and Dinah knows those eyes, sees them every night in her dreams, recognizes them even through the blurred image onscreen.

It’s Helena. 

She doesn’t say anything to Renee about it, because even as every part of her screams out to _fight back,_ to join the resistance, Dinah knows that to do so would be as good as a death sentence for Renee and Cass, and she can’t risk that — not now, not ever.

So she waits, and every rumor she hears of the Huntress, every crossbow she sees graffitied on walls throughout the district give her hope. Dinah doesn’t know what’s true and what’s a lie, but she hears word of a thirteenth district rising to lead the rebellion, of District Two falling to the rebels, then Eight, then Four. Tumbling like dominoes, and there’s no movement in Twelve, not yet —

And then Renee shakes her awake in the middle of the night. 

“The Capitol bombed Eleven,” she says. “Twelve is next.”

Dinah can already hear the faint drone of planes in the distance, and mere minutes later they’re moving in the cover of darkness, in the frigid air, into the woods, deeper and deeper, not even pausing when the first explosions in the distance send a tremor through the ground.

Further and further they go, stumbling blindly, and then — 

They wait.

The drone of planes overhead continues for a week, and then stops abruptly, leaving an eerie silence behind. 

“Is it over?” Cass asks after a day undisturbed by the roar of engines or faraway thuds of bombs. 

“Not safe yet,” Renee replies. “Give it a week.”

A week of silence passes, and then another — they’re running out of food, and the cold is ever-present and inescapable, and they have no choice but to venture back home — _if,_ Dinah thinks grimly, _there’s a home left at all._

She knows they could be walking to their deaths, if the rebellion has failed, and yet somehow, deep down — she doesn’t think they are. 

The taste of ash fills their lungs even a mile out, growing more intense the closer they get to what used to be District Twelve — and when they step out of the trees, they’re greeted by destruction. Leveled buildings, scattered bricks, craters and black soot.

But there are no Peacekeepers to be seen, no Capitol vehicles patrolling the streets, and Dinah lets herself feel a quiet, tentative hope.

They walk to Victor’s Village first, only to find their house a burned-out shell, and so they keep walking until they reach the town center.

Rebuilding has already begun, and Renee doesn’t waste a second — she nudges Dinah toward the makeshift hospital, takes Cass with her to help distribute food, and over and over Dinah hears: _The Capitol fell. The rebels won._

“And Huntress?” she can’t stop herself from asking.

But nobody seems to know.

\---

Word travels through the remains of District Twelve of a visit from the delegates of the new government — and there’s a deep anxiety that settles over them all, that this government will be no better than the last, that the cycle of violence and fear will continue. Renee works to soothe those fears, because she’s become the de facto leader of the survivors — _of course she has,_ Dinah thinks fondly; it’s a role that suits her — but Dinah can see that the same concern grips Renee. 

She’s there when the hovercraft lands — unmarked by the Capitol’s symbols, painted a plain black. She’s there to see them step off the plane — a woman Dinah doesn’t know, and several others, and bringing up the rear, glancing around like she’s looking for something, or someone —

It’s Helena. Taller, and worn down, and with a fresh scar running down the side of her face, but Dinah would know her anywhere. 

Their eyes meet, and it’s like the rest of the world fades away, and it’s just the two of them once more. Dinah’s moving without a second thought, not giving a damn about propriety or professionalism, because _they made it,_ and then Dinah’s embracing her — _alive,_ she thinks, breathing in the scent of cheap soap and sweat and beneath that, something that’s unidentifiable yet wholly, completely _Helena._ It takes a moment for Helena’s hands to come to rest on Dinah's back, but the hesitation in her touch fades quickly.

They finally separate enough for Dinah to look into Helena’s eyes, and she sees, beneath a guarded exterior and a weariness beyond her years, a tentative, fragile hope.

“I knew it,” Dinah whispers. “I knew you had to be alive.” And then she can’t bear even the slight distance between them, so she pulls Helena close again. “I missed you.”

There are a million things she wants to say, but for now, she just holds Helena tight.

They have time, after all.

\---

“When do you have to leave?” Dinah brings herself to ask, even though she’s dreading the answer. They’re in the woods, down at the pond Dinah had told her about back in the arena so long ago. Even in late winter, just on the cusp of spring, it’s beautiful here — the sunlight is clear and watery, the sky a cloudless, dazzling blue, and the world is waking into new life.

But Helena just looks at her. “I don’t have to leave.”

“You — I thought you were gonna be part of the government. Huntress, you know? A symbol of the rebellion.”

“I don’t want that,” Helena replies. “The rebellion’s over. We won. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Good,” Dinah says softly. “I don’t want you to go.”

And when Helena looks at her, the hope in her eyes seems stronger. “You don’t?”

“Of course I don’t.” Dinah moves closer to her, until their legs are pressed together side-by-side. “Helena, for months when you were gone, I never stopped missing you. Not even for one day.”

“I never stopped missing you either,” Helena says slowly, carefully. “I wanted to see you, but I couldn’t risk it.”

“I know.” She understands now, better than ever before.

For a moment, they sit in silence, listening to the quiet rustle of leaves and the birdsong.

“Was it real?” Helena asks abruptly. Her hands are twisted in her lap, knuckles white with tension, and she’s not looking at Dinah. “Back in the arena — was it just an act, or did you mean it?”

Dinah doesn’t have to ask what she’s talking about; she knows immediately. “I meant it,” Dinah tells her, and it’s completely true. "Every bit was real." Even at the beginning, when she'd thought in terms of sponsors and support, it was all there — all the affection, the love — all just waiting to be put into actions and words.

"Good,” Helena says, and smiles, quick and bright. “I wanted it to be." 

And Dinah can’t help herself — just leans in and kisses her.

It's different than ever before, and Dinah quickly understands why — every time before, they'd had an audience, cameras and a crowd. Here, now, it's just the two of them. And it’s _real,_ and Dinah wonders how she’d ever believed that it was just an act — it’s the realest thing in the world, exhilarating and grounding all at once. 

Dinah feels the weight of the past months begin to lift as she draws back and takes Helena’s hand in her own, and the smile on Helena’s face is soft, tentative and hopeful; her eyes aren’t haunted or weary now, but rather soft and shining as Helena looks at her. They're together, after all, alive and at peace and _home,_ and Dinah grins back, rests her head on Helena’s shoulder and thinks, _we’ll be okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!


End file.
